October 11, 2005
Cellphones help trace African immigrants
Cellphones in the hands of sub-Saharan African immigrants left to their fate in the desert after trying to reach Spain have proved to be a key weapon in the fight against human rights abuses, allowing aid organisations and the media to find them, reports Mail&Guardian.
"Mobiles have been a revolution,"allowing the immigrants to be found about 600km south of the border town of Oujda, according to Amanda Sanz of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
"They called us with their mobiles when they had a problem, either in the shape of Moroccan police raids or when [Spanish] police expelled them, or else when gangs linked to the mafia and people-traffickers attacked them.
"They telephoned to tell us about the injured. Contact with them by mobile has been essential in our interventions.
Hundreds of Africans have been left to fend for themselves in recent days after being ejected from Ceuta and Melilla or dispersed by Moroccan authorities into the desert without provisions, prompting an international outcry".
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