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Pushed back to the Sahara Desert
The main respondent is an Algerian man who tried to reach Ceuta through the Moroccan border but he was caught by the Moroccan police and brought as far as possible from the border with Spain (to the Sahara desert), in order for him to be more difficult to attempt it.
Where the pushback took place
He met the Moroccan authorities at the border when trying to cross it (Fnidq to Ceuta). The respondent suspects that they detected his prescence using camera technology. He described that the authorities insulted him, tried to break his phone as well as stealing his money. He describes that sometimes the Moroccan police use insulting or degrading language: “Sometimes you find someone, they tell you some bad things. Why do you come here? You are Algerian. Why do you come to Morocco, go to Algeria, go to Europe. Or kill yourself. Don’t become a martyr.” After that he was brought to the Sahara desert so that it would have been more difficult to come back to the border.
The respondent had to call someone in order to be picked up and move from the desert, this process involved paying the person and it was repeated several times until he finally succeeded in reaching Ceuta by sea. The respondent states that this process happened over and over: ” The military, the police catch you, and you go to Sahara, and you come back, and you help. Afraid for police in the barrage. They bring you, they send you again to the Sahara. The Moroccan police. I come with 85, my weight. Your weight, yeah. Now I’m 66. If you look at my picture before, I was like this. Stress. I eat, I sleep well, but stress eats me.”
overview
from Algeria,
aged 22.