The Diplomat
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, announced yesterday that the ten asylum seekers who are at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport and who claim to be persecuted Sahrawis will be “deported” if the law does not protect them and this is confirmed by the courts.
In response to questions from the media in the León penitentiary centre, where he presided over the celebration of La Merced, patron saint of Penitentiary Institutions, Grande-Marlaska assured that the Ministry of the Interior will adhere to “compliance with national and international law, as at all times and always supported by the judicial bodies.”
When asked about the possibility of these citizens from Morocco being expelled from Spain, the Minister of the Interior said: “All those who have not been deemed to be eligible for international protection according to the law will be deported, returned or returned.”
“And always with judicial ratification in this regard,” stressed Grande-Marlaska, reiterating that compliance with the law “is the framework” in which they move in the Ministry of the Interior.
Before these statements, sources from the Ministry of the Interior consulted by Europa Press confirmed that they are aware that ten citizens from Morocco have communicated in the last few hours that they have gone on a hunger strike while they are being held in the asylum room at the airport.
Denunciation by Podemos
A delegation from Podemos visited this Monday the airport where the “detained Sahrawis” are being held, although without being able to access the asylum room. The secretary general of this party, Ione Belarra, denounced the “inhuman conditions” they are suffering and said that she suspects that the Government is not accepting requests for shelter in order to “not bother” Morocco, which it has defined as a dictatorship.
According to sources from the Ministry of the Interior, there are currently 57 Moroccan citizens in the asylum room at Madrid airport, ten of whom had announced their decision to go on a hunger strike, although only five have refused food earlier in the day.
The Ministry adds that the health personnel are “permanently monitoring their situation, in case specific assistance is necessary, which has not been requested up to now.”
In the last few hours, the lawyer for the group on strike, Fatma El Galia, denounced that there are almost thirty Sahrawis who have spent their first night on a hunger strike at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport.
This lawyer stated that her clients “claim and prove” that they are “persecuted Sahrawi activists.”
“Some have been in prison and have been tortured. We are faced with proven facts to request international protection, because they are in danger if they return to their country,” she said, denouncing that there are people who have been detained for several weeks.
The problems arising from asylum seekers requesting protection when they stopover in Barajas led to the government intervening months ago to prevent the collapse of the facilities when citizens from different African countries arrive, including Mauritania, Senegal, Kenya or Morocco. In some cases, transit visas have been introduced to prevent fraud when stopping over in Madrid.
