Spain: Melilla: First mass expulsions
01 July 1996
The practice of mass expulsion, which is already becoming a routine procedure in other European states such as France, was seen for the first time in the Spanish State in June: some 103 immigrants and asylum-seekers were expelled, using military aircraft, and according to the United Police Union, SUP, the deportees were given the sedative drug Haloperidol.
The immigrants, from Central Africa, had been living for many months in the courtyard of a former Red Cross hospital in Melilla, a Spanish enclave in north Africa. The absence of any sign of an early and satisfactory resolution of their situation, the poor living conditions, several arson attacks and the arrest and expulsion of some of their number by police gave rise to considerable tension. On 17 June, an argument between some of them, and a subsequent intervention by the police, ended in a major confrontation. Afterwards most of the immigrants went to the government headquarters in Melilla, demanding an immediate solution for their problems. They remained there, without food and finding it very difficult, because of the attitude of the police, to get water, until they were arrested on 20 june. They were taken in military planes to Malaga, where they were placed in the Capuchinos detention centre and in migrant hostels. Two days later, all 103 people had "disappeared". Official sources cynically justified their removal to an unknown destination by citing "the right of every immigrant to privacy" and "their protection against possible outbreaks of xenophobia".
The total silence as to the whereabouts of the 103 ended only after their expulsion, on 25 July, to several African countries.
The interior minister Mayor Oreja said that "Operation Melilla", as it was called, was carried out "discreetly and with respect for legal propriety", but it brought protests from human rights groups, from immigrant support organisations and from the Public Defender, or ombudsman. There are strong doubts as to the legality of the procedure. The ombudsman noted various anomalies, including the designation as legal adviser to each of the 103 of a lawyer who was also retained by the government headquarters in Melilla; the detention of 40 of them in two centres for foreigners in Malaga on foot of two detention orders covering groups of names, when the convention is that such orders are made individually; and the fact that more than half of them were not formally deported but simply returned to the country of origin, a procedure which is only applied to people who have previously been deported from Spain or refused entry at the border. Several NGOs claimed that there may have been a further irregularity in failing to inform the immigrants and asylum-seekers of the grounds for their detention and in failing to have them attended by the UNHCR. Moreover, according to the Spanish Commission for Aid to Refugees (CEAR), 29 of them had applied for asylum and another 14 had applications pending, since the Melilla police would accept a maximum of two asylum requests per week. Although it was said that the individuals and their countries of origin were identified, there are considerable doubts about that: almost all had no identity documents, and even police sources presumed that the relevant embassies had not provided confirmation of the information. Of the expellees, 19 were sent to Mali, 24 to Senegal, 50 to Guinea Bissau and 10 to one of the poorest countries in Africa, Cameroon (where another 22 were refused entry after refusing for more than a week to leave the plane which brought them). The countries concerned were promised favourable treatment in their future relations with the Spanish State.