Spain keeps African migrant children in near prison-like conditions
http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/486560,CST-NWS-spain27.article
Spain accused of abusing Africans
Kids said to be kept in squalid conditions
July 27, 2007
BY MAR ROMAN
CANARY ISLANDS
MADRID, Spain -- A human-rights group accused Spain on Thursday of keeping migrant African children inappalling conditions, including windowless ''punishment'' cells where they are beaten and denied access to toilets.
The report by New York-based Human Rights Watch said the abuses took place in holding facilities on the Canary Islands, which lie off Africa's northwest coastof and been swamped by a surge in African migration in recent years.
More than 900 children -- mostly boys from Senegal and Morocco -- are crowded into four ''prison-like''detention centers on Spain's Canary Islands. Immigrants who are caught are returned to their home countries, but the process can take months.
Simone Troller, European children's rights researcher for Human Rights Watch and the report's author, said that under Spanish law, migrant children are not technically allowed to be detained. In practice, she said, they are ''kept in almost prison-like conditions.'' AP
Spain accused of abusing Africans
Kids said to be kept in squalid conditions
July 27, 2007
BY MAR ROMAN
CANARY ISLANDS
MADRID, Spain -- A human-rights group accused Spain on Thursday of keeping migrant African children inappalling conditions, including windowless ''punishment'' cells where they are beaten and denied access to toilets.
The report by New York-based Human Rights Watch said the abuses took place in holding facilities on the Canary Islands, which lie off Africa's northwest coastof and been swamped by a surge in African migration in recent years.
More than 900 children -- mostly boys from Senegal and Morocco -- are crowded into four ''prison-like''detention centers on Spain's Canary Islands. Immigrants who are caught are returned to their home countries, but the process can take months.
Simone Troller, European children's rights researcher for Human Rights Watch and the report's author, said that under Spanish law, migrant children are not technically allowed to be detained. In practice, she said, they are ''kept in almost prison-like conditions.'' AP
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