October 1992, Page 42

Maghreb Mirror

From Morocco to Spain: A 10-Mile Boat Ride on a Moonless Night

By Jamal Amiar

In the spring of 1991, Spain became the latest European country to establish visa requirements for visitors from North Africa. Previously, in conformity with European Community directives, France, Italy, Greece, Belgium and the Netherlands had done the same. The move was meant to slow the tide of North Africans sweeping across Europe in search of jobs and a better life.

The new administrative measures are not stopping North African immigration into Europe. The desire for better opportunities is stronger than any new regulations. In fact, deteriorating social conditions in the Maghreb are motivating more North African women and men to find new ways to reach the shores of Europe, only 10 miles away from Tangier, Morocco, at the northern tip of the African continent.

Water is the border between poverty and hope.

With unemployment between 20 and 30 percent in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, the only solution for some is to leave the north of Africa for the south of Europe.

Increasingly, sub-Sahara Africans, fleeing the wars and misery to the south, are flocking to Morocco from Senegal, Mozambique, Mali, Niger, Liberia, Angola and Kenya.

All of these young people, whether from northern or southern Africa, arrive in Tangier looking for a boat to take them on a night trip to the shores of southern Spain. On cloudy or moonless nights, fleets of small fishing boats, each with 15 to 25 passengers, leave the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibralter for the Spanish one.

While they wait, the would-be immigrants dream. On Monday evenings from 8 to 9:30 p.m., the first channel of Spanish public television broadcasts its version of the American game show "The Price is Right." In the main room of a popular cafe in the old city of Tangier dozens of young Moroccans, Algerians, and Sub-Sahara Africans are watching this program intently.

Participants on the show must guess as closely as possible the price of merchandise being shown, in order to win it. It all seems so easy, and that's how would-be immigrants from south of the Mediterranean want to think of life in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. European cultural influence and African misery and wars are what turn the wheels of emigration, even when the process is illegal, expensive and dangerous.

Not Everyone Gets There

It costs around 6,000 Moroccan dirhams (U.S. $750) to book a "seat" on a clandestine fishing boat heading north. In 1990, the Spanish coast guard caught 293 illegal immigrants who had just reached the Spanish shore, among them 142 Moroccans. In 1991, 641 immigrants were caught, among them 522 Moroccans. During the first five months of 1992, 496 illegal immigrants were caught, among them 321 Moroccans and 125 Liberians.

These figures only cover what takes place along the beaches of Cadiz, Tarifa and Algeciras at the southern tip of Spain. More candidates for a new life try to reach Europe from other points in Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia. On Aug. 18, Italian police caught 27 Moroccans and Tunisians who had just reached a Sicilian beach. In the western Mediterranean, as in Texas or California, these illegal immigrants are called "wetbacks." On both continents, water is the border between poverty with stagnation, and the unknown with hope.

Beyond their human and social aspects, these migrations are creating a new set of diplomatic problems. With unemployment ranging from 10 to 15 percent, Europe is closing its borders to non-European immigrants. Until very recently the Spanish would send illegal Moroccan immigrants back to Morocco, while retaining the Black African immigrants until their nationality is determined and the appropriate embassy contacted. But Spain is unhappy with this slow system, and is beginning to return all illegal immigrants back to the country of "immediate origin," meaning the country from which they took a boat. As a result, Tangier is acquiring new Black African neighborhoods as chances of getting to Europe decline, but people keep on trying.

According to Spanish sources, some 1,000 immigrants died in the waters of the Strait of Gibralter last year. As the Strait of Gibralter is among the most heavily used waterways in the world, collisions between commercial vessels and fishing boats carrying illegal immigrants are the most important causes of death there.

The young Moroccans or Senegalese waiting here in Tangier for their trip to Europe only dream of the dignity of a real job and sending money back to their mother and eventually returning home with enough savings to build a house or open a business. Poor and illiterate, they dream of earning enough money to live a decent life, marry, raise children and eventually retire to the lands of their birth. Such beautiful dreams may or may not be accommodated in the new Europe, which has problems of its own.

Jamal Amiar is a U.S.-educated radio journalist based in Tangier, Morocco.

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