Although they feel a profound rejection of the word, the law marks them as illegal. What nobody wants to acknowledge is that even in their condition they still have rights and that marginalizing and ignoring them will not make them disappear.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 29-08-2010

The policy of mass deportations that the governments of Spain and Morocco are pursuing leads to a lack of respect to the human dignity of these people, who survive in appalling conditions, terrified by the thought that the next camp to be removed is theirs, and then suffer mistreat and physical abuse when it comes time to lose everything.

At the moment they are in hot waters, enduring some sort of psychological tortures at their integrated refuge territories in the rocky forests at the border town, and in the cities of the Morocco Kingdom, from the authorities. Notably following continues mass deportations to the seven kilometres Normans Land between Morocco and Algeria.
Having entered the country illegally, they are defined as invisible, so NGOs resources are limited to take actions in their situations, due to the so called “illegal natures”. Illegal migrants who are arrested by security services must be allowed due process. Their expulsion must be carried out in a way that preserves their human dignity.
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Drama in the Algerian desert. Twelve sub-Saharan candidates to illegal emigration die of hunger and thirst.

Ramatoulaye FAYE SAMBE. Lemigrant / Madrid. 5-09-2010

While in Spain we are still seeing the trickle of boats coming across the Strait (this Sunday was one of 34 immigrants to the shores of Andalusia), in sub-Saharan countries continue to repeat the tragedy.

When trying to cross the border between Mali and Algeria, a group of Sub-Saharan young men never knew they had an appointment with death. According to French news agency the drama came in the second week of last August.
The victims were three Cameroonians, three Malians, two Ivorians, two Senegalese, a Gambian and a Guinean. The victims belonging to West Africa in their vast majority died after the truck carrying them had a fault in an area where there is no water point. They had left the town of Kidal (northern Mali) to arrive at Tamanrasset, Algeria and gradually move to Europe.
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Unless someone puts an end to these savage begging, it might become a phenomenal issue on the road to survival.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 29-08-2010

Sub-Saharan immigrants are well-known for their illegal entry into Morocco through the Oujda border, which the authorities controls severely in order to put an end to their European dreams.

There are many immigrants from all over Africa, but with a higher population from West Africa and the very large numbers of these people are from Nigeria, who crosses the Oujda border to Europe. These travellers, travel without any financial support, so they do anything on their way to survive. As ghanaians involve themselves in hard labour with other French speaking countries, nigerians are being known for their mafia ways through the same journey to their destination. But some of them also go on the streets corners to do begging before having their daily bred and also save some money to help the continuation of their adventures.
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“It’s a shame that our children can not believe that there are people suffering in Europe”.

Ramatoulaye FAYE SAMBE. Lemigrant / Madrid. 29-08-2010

Omar was a lucky one, he did not suffer during the trip and was among those who made it to Spain alive. However, his nightmare began once in Spain and lasted three years. After being cold, hunger, humiliated and imprisonment, he is returning to Senegal now.

Senegalese Oumar Dieng is a forty-two years. He arrived in Spain in October 2006. After a stay full of setbacks and difficulties, has decided to voluntarily leave the Iberian country to return to his native Senegal.
- How did you come to Spain?
I came in a canoe. I was a bus driver and earned a decent life in my country with my two wives, and my seven children.
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The road to the western world is full of ghosts, lost ghosts, people who dies in front of your eyes through dirty, starvation and violence. I was there too and I will always go there again and again.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 22-08-2010

Immigrants in Africa claim for their right to transform reality into a resource. Whatever is the situation, we Africans are saying: leave us alone if you can’t do anything about us. Stop playing games on the children of Africa, enough is enough, leave us alone to solve our own problems if you can’t.

Things have changed and will never be the same for the Sub-Saharans who were living on the human trafficking and other illegal business on their roads for a better life and future in the Northern countries, said Mohammed a 31 year old Nigerian immigrant residing at Rabat.
This young man spoke to me in a respectful manner, wanting to know about me and the name of my country, after a brief introduction to each other, he then shared his story with me.
In-fact, Mr Mohammed opened up to me and told me about his struggle to survive on his way to Europe for good living conditions. He has been in Morocco since 2005 with one aim: to go to his dream land the United Kingdom, but due to the challenges he had to face through, he later decided to help his girlfriends to go forward as he was depending on them to have money for his house rent and other daily needs at Rabat.
Mohammed girls have been sending him some little cash until 2008, when both girl friends were deported back to Nigeria from Spain. He said the young ladies have kept in touch with him from Nigeria and are always requesting for a help from him, but he always advices them to stay back home and try to find men to marry them and to start something new, because the road to the western world is full of ghosts and he don’t want them to be like one of those lost ghosts, as he explains in his own words: – Young ladies find a man to settle down and if you want you can marry. I will always be happy for them, the day they shall call me to inform me that they are living a happy lifestyle back in Nigeria.
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Regardless of their status, whether legal or illegal, the scourge of domestic violence is also reflected in the immigrant community as anywhere in the world. Most of these people want to use extreme power on to their so called love once.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 15-08-2010

For clandestine immigrants, the problem is compounded by the fear of the victim to report by mistrust of the police and fear of deportation.

These are some of the hidden stories
A 22 year old young woman from the Ivory Coast, Dianna, who came since early December 2008 with her 3 year old daughter Betty to join her boyfriend, the father of Betty, Marouse. He is a 27 year old man also from the same nation. The couple lives and work in Morocco with legal documents, but Dianna is a victim of domestic abuse done by her partner, a very jealous young man, who even takes his girlfriend’s salary every month.
She is being beaten every blessed day by her boyfriend without any solid reason and the case was reported to the police by Dianna who was encouraged by her friends. Today the matter is in the hands of the Moroccan authorities, in wait for answers.
Abuse is not an accident. It does not happen because someone was stressed-out, drinking, or using drugs. Abuse is an intentional act that one person uses in a relationship to control the other. Abusers have learned to abuse so that they can get what they want. The abuse may be physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological.
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After a year of journey on foot, being treated like a slave, Miran was the one who made it to Spain. Now awaits a deportation order for five years.

Marlise Calderón. Lemigrant / Madrid. 15-08-2010

With 17 years old, Miran embarked on a journey in which he grew up: he has seen death up close, has lived hunger and fear. He is however one of the lucky ones, the ones who arrived, the ones who survived. Somewhere along the 9,000 km that separate Bangladesh from Madrid he may have lost a lot of the freshness a 17 year old sees life, but now he begins to understand that this is the real price of his trip.

Despite having achieved his dream, today he can’t lift his head off the floor. He is depressed; his sad, hopeless eyes speak for himself. His uncle, who welcomed him in Madrid, says he’s been that way since he arrived: just eat, hardly sleep, just talking. Miran is the shadow of what is expected of a boy his age, but when he begins to tell his story speaks with determination.
He relates naturally how his family encouraged him to leave Bangladesh to go to Europe and start a new life, a better one, as everyone expects. “In Bangladesh there are no opportunities,” he says, so his parents paid for the trip thinking that would take him to Pakistan and from there to Spain by plane. Although it sounds incredible, many families like Miran’s put themselves in the hands of gangs on a daily basis, they deposit their money, their children and believe – or want to believe – firmly in their promises for the future.
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Illegal immigrants shall make history some days to come in the future. Cry for these population when they are dead but right now, pray for them to survive as we are unable to well convince them to stay in their countries. Because the travelling season is here again and the ocean festivities have started taking place again as usual.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 8-08-2010

How many of them shall reach Europe? We can’t predict how many of them will give up at the large sea. Or maybe we should invite Paul the octopus to do a mystery work on our behalf.

In South Africa today, Jackie Selebi has shown the whole world a sad example of African leaders in recent decades. Their belly full while still hungry, the next man on power is taking away every right from the youth and preventing them to rise up and be on power too.
And when there aren’t any promises of hopes in the future for these youth, they turn around to migrate in the western world for economic and security stabilities.
He began his extensive political career in 1983 as a representative of the World Federation of Democratic Youth in Budapest, Hungary. In 1987, he would be elected head of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League while in exile in Zambia, to which National Executive Committee he was appointed too.
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From door to door the moroccan authorities move in searching to control the Sub-Saharans. Everything is totally normal, but what is not normal is the way they want to get in to people’s private life without any mandate.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 25-07-2010

I was told by the Sub-Saharans in my community that the police had arrested some Ivorian migrants and they were being asked for money to be freed. But I immediately objected their story by telling them that the police never arrest anybody without a valuable reason. The following day at about 5:30pm, I was the next target

I was out of my renting apartment going down the stairs from the fourth floor, then while I got to the second floor of the building I saw a group of people claiming up the stairs and I stir at them and immediately knew who they were.
As they passed me by, one of them asked me if I was living in the building then I said yes. Then without introducing to me who they were, they asked to control my documents and I told them that for security reasons I don’t keep my documents on me and even the copy of it which I carry on me everywhere I go had gone missing in the public transport with my wallet.
So they had to give me a few minutes to make a call to the Friendship & Solidarity association where I had kept all my original documents. As I was trying to get my cell phone to make a call, I was asked by the leader of the troupe of six plain cloths police men not to make any move in making a call to whom so ever and I should open my apartment for them to control in.
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A more rigorous analysis of the victims needs takes into consideration the social-economic and cultural context in direct operations to rebuild local capacity. Humanitarian aid is thus better targeted and its volume reduced to the minimum necessary to meet urgent needs.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 25-07-2010

It is an approach that can also be linked with development work. Clearly, this strategy depends on access to the victims and respect for their rights.

Who expresses the views of the new policies or opinions to reflect the necessary health care needs of the Sub-Saharan population well present in Morocco? Discourage sending humanitarians, is an example of moving from improvised planned to give chances to disasters
Teach the poor population about the principles of the humanitarians and also confirm the myth that population and authorities are in need of whatever help the “outside” world can provide. Nevertheless associations continue to be overwhelmed with donations, the large majority of which are unsolicited medicines, food, clothing, blanket, and other low priority items.
A financial support is needed in giving evidence to justify humanitarian medical intervention. But when we don’t even know who to address the situation to, is another major problem which keeps our concern.
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There has been a “very pronounced decline” in the arrival of undocumented migrants from Africa, although Spain “continues to be an attractive destination”, said this week Juan Enrique Taborda the National Police’s head of border security.

Santander. 25-07-2010

According to the Civil Guard -Spain’s militarized police- this decline has been due to the cooperation of African countries like Mali and Niger, as well as to the creation of mixed maritime patrols between Spain and Morocco.

In the last session of the course entitled Security Strategies: Police Cooperation and Citizen Participation, offered by Menendez Pelayo International University in Santander, was also present the adjunct director of the European Union’s Frontex border agency, Gil Arias, who said that “the route to the Canary Islands is practically dead,” referring to the flow of migrants to the Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa.
Immigration from North Africa to Malta and Italy is also under control, he said.
This has caused a “displacement effect” among sub-Saharan and Maghrebi immigrants to Turkey, where they join other migration flows coming from the Middle East and Afghanistan, Arias said.
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Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, turns 92 years old on Sunday, as the world celebrates the first international day in his honour.

Johanesburgo. 18-07-2010

The Nelson Mandela Institute yesterday called on South Africans to participate in Mandela Day by doing something for education in SA.

Global leaders and ordinary people in South Africa and abroad have committed to devoting 67 minutes of their time to community service, to mark the number of years Mandela spent in politics.
His birthday was in 2009 recognised by the United Nations as “Nelson Mandela International Day” and will be celebrated across the world.
The increasingly frail leader is spending the day with family at his Johannesburg home.
Local politicians united in wishing the anti-apartheid icon well on his birthday, with international leaders hailing his contribution to global politics and the fight for human rights.
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There isn’t free medical assistance offered for the poor minorities on the globe, so how do you expect a nation like Morocco to give free medical assistance to Sub-Saharans when some of their poor citizens are also in need of the same free health care.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 17-07-2010

It’s getting worst in the community when medical assistance is now being a major problem for the minority race.

Alioune Badara Lo is only 6 years old boy from Senegalese parents. He was accidentally knocked down a month ago by a Taxi driver at Ferdaouss a suburb town of Casablanca, yet he was not entitled to receive free health care. After medical control of X ray and brain scanning at the CHU IBN ROCHD Hospital of Casablanca, the bills was higher for his single unemployed mother to pay and the solution of payment from the hospital authorities was to seize the passport of his poor mother Coumba Fall who is 39 yrs of age. Until the bills are paid she will remain without document and if she doesn’t find a solution on time she will end up being illegal immigrant in the Kingdom of Morocco.
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Babacar Boyé, a senegalese drummer and dancer, is part of a recent influx into Morocco of sub-Saharan Africans. Some are migrants, others are students and a few are working. All have come to see the country as a step toward realising their ambitions.

John Thorne. The National / Casablanca. 11-07-2010

Interest in Africa is a relative novelty in Morocco, a country which has traditionally looked to the Arab world and Europe for cultural imports.

Sitting opposite the children is a dreadlocked man from Senegal called Babacar Boyé, twice their height and clenching a skin drum between his knees. “Like this, children,” he says, slapping the drum with his palms: Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum, Da-dum.
The children pound their own drums in unison, and thunder reverberates into the courtyard of the École La Prairie, a private primary school in Casablanca.
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She is only seventeen years old and already a nursing mother to a three months old baby girl in the Sub-Saharan Community at Casablanca.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 11-07-2010

Carole is from Congo Brazzaville, she came to study on the Moroccan soil, but rather end up giving birth to this bouncing baby girl.

Talking to Carole, I can feel there is a secret behind her pregnancy which she is not feeling ready yet to share with anybody. What had my attention was about her child’s health, when she came in knocking at my door to ask me if I could be a help of medical assistance or orientation to a place where she can receive free treatments for her child, because she no longer has money to pay for consultation and bills.
The health system had being much better evaluated in Morocco in recent years. And public health centres offers free health care. Women are the first beneficiary of this according to the centers for diseases.
These statistics aren’t meant to alarm, but rather to convey the importance of starting prenatal care as early as possible — ideally, before women even become pregnant. Of course, this isn’t always possible or practical. But the sooner care is taken, the better chances of ensuring women own health and that of their babies.
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Children born on the desert, at the borders towns and in the transits countries of their unregulated document parents are very vulnerable.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 04-07-2010

When it’ comes to children right in the community. It’s a pity to see all these but nothing special is being done about these matters.

Most of the children born in these conditions will have to face big challenges in the future, in searching for their original identities. Some may not even make it through because of their parents eager to cross the ocean with them and none of us knows what shall happen during their voyage on the stormy waters across the Mediterranean Sea.
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For God’s sake, does anyone somewhere remarks at all that these people are blocked down here without any future?

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 20-06-2010

The same old faces are turning around in the country hoping for solutions, some times you feel like they are gone out of this nation and will never return anymore, but you get surprised to see them at their main meeting surrounding at the bazaar of the Casablanca Medina.

Looking at their faces, it was these same faces some years back. I keep seeing the same population and the same images. What went wrong or what is rather going wrong with the Sub-Saharan community present in Morocco? Where does their future lies?
Everyone is minding his/her own business, ignoring the facts of the immigrants situation, as if by accepting to live with Aliens in the hood.
Three weeks ago, Lamina from Guinea Conakry, aged around 40 years, went frustrated about her living conditions in Morocco. Over thinking of what to eat, pay her rent and other stuff like that of a kind! She ended up by running out of her living place in Chiminou, purely undressed. She ran nakedly in the streets of Casablanca, unconsciously exhibiting herself in the public places and nothing was done on that by the authorities knowing clearly that she was mentally disturbed.
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When the European Union locks its neighbors
In this paper, the geographer Clochard Olivier, who designed the map of the externalization of border controls in Europe, talks about the consequences of this policy.

Olivier Clochard. Le Monde diplomatique / 27-06-2010

The map of the deaths of foreigners at the borders of the European Union, created by the researchers network “Migreurop” is the brutal symbol of the effects of immigration policy over the last thirty years

Indeed, the confinement of undesirables is not new in history, but had always presented within a logic of protection of the State security or surveillance of persons allegedly dangerous. The detention of foreign citizens for reasons related to their status as migrants or asylum seekers is a more recent phenomenon.
In the 27 states of the European Union, the number of administrative detention is estimated around 250 (in 2009), but the total capacity remains undetermined because we only know the 150 of them, nearly 32,000 seats. However, despite being one of the priority policy of the Union there is no official data published at European level. To make this map, available information sources are almost all non-governmental organizations (NGO). These data are very incomplete and far from homogeneous.
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Some good samaritans from a church in California (USA) have shown how much they care for humanity and the poor people no matter their origins and faith.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 20-06-2010

In collaboration with Friendship and Solidarity and The Minority Globe, this week is being a memorable period among the Sub-Saharan community in a few areas of Casablanca, Morocco.

Over seventy immigrants families in Casablanca where able to benefit from the food aid, and many more where present, but were not able to have a piece of anything, due to the reduced budget of the Samaritans.
Beginning from, “Al Ferdoaus Oulfa”, “Sidi Khadir”, “Lissasfa” and the “Casablanca Medina” immigrant families, mainly women with children, received a basket of food which contain basic food as rice, baking flour, cooking oil, and also some personal hygiene products like bathing shampoo, soap, tooth brushes and toothpaste.
Their actions were welcomed in the shanty towns where most of the Sub-Saharans lives, and in my presence I witnessed the good will of these fellows sharing the packages to some of the poor Moroccan families as well.
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Past 8 June, the preliminary hearing of the trial of Joy took place. Joy is a young Nigerian girl who has been been sentenced to six months for having participated to the revolt of Via Corelli’s center and who has revealed to have been raped by the chief officer of the center, Vittorio Adesso.

Migreurope / 13-06-2010

For having been so brave in the denunciation of the brutal and sexist system of the Italian Centers of identification and deportation, Joy has been sued for slander. Hellen, another girl that confirmed Joy’s version, has been sued for the same accusation.

After having already spent six months in jail for Via Corelli revolt, Joy is waiting for being judged for another accusation that seems clearly groundless and that demonstrate the political willingness to isolate and punish an embarrassing witness for the repressive machine of the centers.
Joy arrived in Italy in 2002 and she thought to work as hairdresser. Mislead by the criminal organization that had organized her departure, she was obliged to prostitute herself and then she was arrested by the police for being migrant in irregular situation. She was detained in the center of Ponte Galeria and then transferred to the center of Modena.
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Very few individual citizens get concerned about the Sub-Saharan immigrant’s situation here in Morocco, and among them, is the one and only Moroccan association «Amitié et solidarité».

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 4-06-2010

The “Friendship and Solidarity” association has also been the key organizer of this year International Refugees Day in Casablanca, next june 18th, which should have been sponsored by the UNHCR office in Rabat, but it was just last week when they found out there was no budget available for the celebration.

Formed in December 2006 as a humanitarian organization involved in helping impoverished people and victims of conflict, struggling against oppression and human rights violation in Morocco; the organization assists everyone regardless of their race, religion, sex, age, nationality, political affiliation or disability.
Among their aims are overcoming racism and racial discrimination, organizing discussion for refugees, migrants and other interested people in order to share their experiences in Morocco, to better know their needs and help along their integration. Promote public awareness, acceptance and tolerance. Provide support, advice and intervene in case of violation of the Fundamental Human Rights laws. Organizes awareness campaigns on the establish Human Rights laws in Morocco. Inform national and international public opinion about issues concerning asylum seekers and immigration. Encourage bridge-building between people through art, culture and sports by organizing meetings and summer camps. Mainly promoting and protecting women’s right and those of their children.
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At least 10,000 immigrants came to Vic, 40 miles north of Barcelona, in the past few years, swelling it’s population by a quarter. They did the hard, dirty work and were welcomed. Not any more. Half lost their jobs when Spain’s construction bubble burst in 2008 and brought the good times to an abrupt end.

Martin Fletcher. The Times / 5-06-2010

The food bank in Vic occupies an old bakery in a side street. Each day hundreds of unemployed stream in to collect handouts of bread, milk, pasta and other necessities. The overwhelming majority are immigrants, predominantly Moroccans and sub-Saharan Africans who flocked to Vic to work on building sites or in the huge pig farms and meat factories that surround the town and give it its distinctive smell.

A deeply unpopular €15 billion austerity package rushed through parliament last week will make life even harder. On top of that, the immigrants are now the target of Platform for Catalonia, Spain’s equivalent of the BNP, which is based in Vic. “Control immigration — stop the crisis,” its leaflets proclaim.
“They insult us. They say maybe we’re the cause of the crisis, that we take their jobs. It’s not fair and it’s not nice,” said Mercy Omoroagbon, 30, as she collected her handout. She arrived from Nigeria in 2002, lost both her cleaning jobs last year and now lives off the charity of friends.
“They say the Spanish can’t work because of the immigrants. It’s not true. We did the work the Spanish didn’t want or wouldn’t do,” said Joy Ekechukwu, 33, another Nigerian who came to Spain 11 years ago, lost her factory job and now struggles to support her two young children.
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If an immigrant comes to Morocco with the aim to seek asylum then he/she is some kind of indirectly oblige to stay in Rabat to have access to the documents or else you shall always be named illegal immigrant.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 4-06-2010

Asylum seekers, new coming immigrants and even the outside Rabat residence refugees are the most vulnerable victims of what I call negligence. These are the rules of the game, just respect it or choose to reject it and you are lost for ever until you make your own solutions to solve the equation.

In mid August 2005 I met a new friend in Algiers, Jojo Mauna, from Cameroon who convinced me to enter Morocco with him illegal from Algeria without obtaining Moroccan Visa from the authorities. When we came I was arrested and deported back to Algeria, but I still came back the same day because I was left with no other option due to the condition at that moment. But for a while we were lost having no contact with each other. Until I made my way to Casablanca and I was sparing as a boxing partner to earn a living in a boxing club. I once again heard of Jojo living in Rabat, who later came to Casablanca to work with me in the gym, but as a monitor of aerobic to Casablanca ladies.

He was earning a good living in his work more than I was doing in those days and he got a promotion to work in a first class aerobic gym in Casablanca. Later on he complained to me that we should risk our lives in the sea to Europe, because spending money going to Rabat to seek asylum and nothing was done about us, every time we get there, we were told the number of people needs to be attend for the day was exceeded so we should get there the following week. We kept going there for more than eight months and we were never received in to be interviewed so we got frustrated and stopped going there for any assistance. I remember sometimes we would be there midnight and sleep in the cold ground at the gate of the UNHCR office to make sure we catch up with the line the next morning. But I bet we were never lucky to go inside the gates of the office.
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Every 25th of May is the Day of Africa and this year we decided to visit an old friend to the former prison of Algeciras, now converted into a Center for Foreigners.

Javi Valdezate. Lemigrant.net / 30-05-2010

It is in the old prison of Algeciras, where Bruno ended 10 days ago, after the zodiac he was traveling came to the beach of Bolonia in Tarifa with 49 people aboard. Most Nigerians like him. There were women and children.

We met Bruno about six months ago in Takadoum, one of those neighborhoods in Rabat where the police dare not enter, harboring of criminals, drug dealers, mobsters, and poor people like Bruno, who saw in Takadoum a refuge safe from the Moroccan police.
Bruno began a weeklong trip to Europe like so many. But the weeks turned into months. And the months became years. Since 2007, Bruno was blocked, saving money. He had already tried once, but he was cheated, and he had never come ashore.
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19 yrs old footballer Samuel Obi from Nigeria has just arrived in Morocco through the Sahara desert, he believes he has not any future in his country.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 27-05-2010

The South African 2010 World Cup festivities on the continent are not enough in some nations to convince upcoming skilfull talented players. It’s rather a wake up call to these young athletes; many will seat in front of their homes TV sets to have imaginations on their football careers, and some will go as far taking the next bus in their home towns to unknown destinations and even out of their countries in search for a better place to kick balls with a big hope on their future.

There are not much job opportunities nowdays in almost every part of the world. While African are still lacking of creating jobs for the young generations, which makes every one struggle to see where their future is. It’s true some wealthy people encourages the poor to work hard to their goals and to a personal freedom in life, and poor Africans are still following these footsteps of the riches but sometimes find themselves on the wrong lane.
Let’s everyone invest to focus on African farming to see if show business was the only option for the young generation, instead of imitating what we see in the western medias.
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Professional migrants are those needed at the other side of the ocean, people whose talents could be a money making machine to contribute in building a nation intellectually and economically.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 21-05-2010

It was the last words my uncle Frank Odoi told me. Since the country of Uncle Sam’s gave him a Citizenship as a talented soccer player, he just can’t help it as not having the same mentality like all the wonderful great kinds of Uncle Sam.

We all look on to where our future is standing, a place where every one sees you in the neighbourhood and knows notice you are very special and they threat you with the maximum of celebrity respect. It is you today, and tomorrow it might be me or why not us too?
The Boateng brothers, Jerome and Kevin-Prince may be as if being on the opposite sides during a World Cup Group D match between Germany and Ghana in Johannesburg on the 23 rd of June next month. The Hamburg SV defender Jerome was included in Germany’s 27-man preliminary squad, and Ghana also named Kevin-Prince in their 30-man equivalent, few weeks ago.
Portsmouth midfielder Kevin-Prince was chosen even though the Ghana football federation is still waiting for confirmation from world soccer’s ruling body FIFA for his switch of nationality, having previously been capped at under-21 level by Germany.
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Between August and October 2005, there were at least 11 deaths at Melilla and Ceuta, most of them shot with live ammunition as they rushed the fence at night; one man with his throat crushed by a rubber bullet; dozens of others injured by bullets or by falling from the fence; many of them reporting they were assaulted and robbed by security forces.

Nick Davies. The Guardian / 13-05-2010

The Spanish said it was the Moroccans; the Moroccans said it was the Spanish. On one night during these months, six men were shot on the Moroccan side of the fence at Melilla: the Moroccan authorities said this was self-defence because the migrants were throwing rocks at them. Nobody was charged with any of the killings.

In the background, Amnesty tracked Moroccan security forces sweeping through the makeshift camps in the woodland, rounding up migrants, including asylum seekers, and dumping them out in the desert on the Algerian border, 30km from the nearest village, without food or water. Some tried to walk into Algeria, only to be caught by Algerian forces and sent back to Morocco. Médecins Sans Frontières found 500 migrants, including pregnant women, stranded in two villages in the area and reported that in the previous two years, they had treated nearly 10,000 migrants with illnesses and that nearly a quarter of them showed clear signs of violent attack, including beatings, shootings, attacks with dogs and sexual assaults, all of which the victims attributed to security forces. The Moroccans blamed the Algerians. The Algerians blamed the Moroccans.
Looking back at these few months of intense violence, Amnesty concluded in a special report: “In the past few weeks, scores of people have been injured and at least 11 killed while trying to cross into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla when they were confronted by the law enforcement officials of both countries… Hundreds more, including possible asylum seekers, have been rounded up by the Moroccan authorities and placed in detention or forcibly removed. The evidence we saw showed law enforcement officials used force which is both unlawful and disproportionate, including lethal weapons. They injured and killed people trying to cross the fence. Many of those seriously injured inside Spanish territory were pushed back through fence doors without any legal formality or medical assistance.” The Spanish reacted by building an even bigger fence, subsidised by the EU.
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I keep asking my self, what a talented goal scorer is doing here on an empty land of unrecognized talents, while at the other part of the ocean there are millions of euros to be earned in every season of their soccer league.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 13-05-2010

He was training with his academic school ‘Centre Formation SIDIAFA Football Club’ in Abidjan, the capital city of the Ivory Coast, when this strange fellow came on the field making ways and convincing high profile players including the football coaches and the president of the academy to have their attention as he named himself a manager.

“Mr. Football Managers” have every fake document they need to practice their con businesses. Midfielder Guela Hans Wayne explains how he, his family and friends were victims. The man was welcomed into the family house to discuss about how Hans would have a better football career in abroad.
As convinced the young player’s parents that he got the contacts of the great football clubs in most parts of the world. The boy’s parents sponsored his voyage to Morocco to be integrated in The Raja club as the manager had promised them. But after his arrival with eight other victims they all realised the issue was a scam business, when the so-called manager told them to try and start training on their own and pray that the Almighty God help them to find team in Morocco to be kicking in.
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African migrants will do anything to get into the Spanish enclave of Melilla. And the authorities will do anything to keep them out.

Nick Davies. The Guardian / 9-05-2010

Back in the autumn of 1998, a teacher from Melilla called Jose Palazon noticed something strange was happening each night to the dustbin in front of his house. He kept an eye out and discovered that, under cover of darkness, a young boy was removing the rubbish from the bin so that he could sleep in it. The idea of the child being reduced to the status of trash was worrying but not entirely surprising to Palazon, who was used to the sight of migrants sleeping rough on the streets of his city.

Palazon and his wife, Maite, got talking to the boy and found he was only 11 years old and had been living in the dark corners of the city since he had come over the fence from Morocco three years earlier. They succeeded in adopting him and tried to persuade the city’s council to help the other migrant children on its streets, joining with friends to form a campaigning group called Prodein. But, Palazon recalls: “They didn’t want to help the children, as that would encourage more to come to Melilla.”
And that is the problem behind the simplistic calls for British jobs for British workers – if you treat migrants well, give them the kind of human rights Europeans demand for themselves, you only encourage them to keep coming. So Melilla has become a kind of theatre, acting out the most intense human dramas which are calculated to send a message of deterrence to that great global audience of hopeful poor.
The message is: “Don’t be fooled by the wide avenues and beautiful fountains of this Spanish city. None of this is for you. Stay where you are, stay poor and, if you dare to try to come here, we’ll hurt you. If you’re really unlucky, we’ll let you stay here and you’ll have no way out, you’ll just be trapped and hopeless, without any legal rights to call your own.”
This theatre clearly involves the Spanish, although they have shown some signs of attempting to be humane, but it is by no means uniquely their production. The Moroccans, too, are deeply implicated in the killing of migrants on the African side of the fence as well as in the entirely illegal export of men, women and children into the desert beyond their borders. And the European Union as a body is the power behind the Spanish, funding the production, writing the script, ignoring the casualties, whether physical or legal. To protect our jobs, the EU authorises Melilla to be a theatre of cruelty.
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The economic crisis has raised a lot of daily challenges in the Sub-Saharan countries for one reason, fight back poverty. Evaluating the past to make choices in to the future it’s another method of saying no by wealth less individuals and families.

Reuben Y. Odoi. Lemigrant / Casablanca. 6-05-2010

The focuses are on the young generations to make differences, a difference which demands huge sacrifices from these youngsters who migrate in industrials and economical revolution nations to exhibit their golden talents, with the aim of making money out of it in a professional level.

High profile athletes in Africa today, migrate in rich nations and some times they even go as far as giving up their original nationalities for a wealthy one due to their social and economic backgrounds.
Football in recent years has been considered as an individual resource of getting rich so far as a talented footballer could play skillfully and score as many goals in his active. Personally my family and relatives played soccer once in their lifetime; this credited my uncle Frank Odoi a citizenship in the USA during his soccer career in the 1960s. He ones played a scoreless game against ‘SOCCER KING PELE’ during a match between The New York Cosmos and The Buffalo Stallions, in which the two men pay respect to each other after the match.
My father used to tell me, if he had known that football was becoming a big business during his time, he would have stayed in the game, when he was playing for the Ghanaian junior national team. Today when I see teenage players migrating I have an idea of what they are about.
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