Accra, Oct 25, GNA - A group of 120 Ghanaian illegal immigrants arrived in Accra on Tuesday, onboard a charted flight from Morocco. The all male group who had been residing in the country for periods ranging between four months and three years claimed they were using Morocco as a transit point to Europe.
The deportees, who looked traumatized, unkempt and with torture marks over their body claimed they were was inflicted by Moroccan security personnel who rounded them up at various locations. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency at the Airport, they accused the Moroccan Security Personnel and a Special Search Task Forces of forcibly taking their personal belongings and money when they arrested them.
Some of them explained that they were able to get to Span either through Morocco, Algeria or Libya but were rounded up and sent to Morocco.
Investigations by the GNA revealed that most of them were shoeshine boys, labourers, gatekeepers, waiters, shop attendants and unemployed in Ghana before they left to seek greener pastures. A 20-year-old former shoeshine boy, William Siaw, said he went to Morocco through Senegal by road last four months but was arrested by the security personnel.
Narrating his ordeal, Nuru Suleman, 20 years old said he spent one and half years in Libya, moved to Algeria to work for a year to earn some money to move on to Europe but was duped by a "Connection man" or a Middleman who bolted away with his money. They were screened by Immigration Officials and handed over to the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).