Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January-June 2007 117 Interceptions at sea Return of unaccompanied minors AI continued to be concerned by violations of the rights of migrants and asylumseekers attempting to reach Spanish territory. In March a boat, Happy Day, was intercepted by an Italian vessel operating under the European Union (EU) border control force (Frontex) approximately 80 miles off the coast of Senegal apparently heading towards the Canary Islands. Some 260 irregular migrants and possible asylumseekers were on board the boat, operated by a Georgian crew. On Spanish orders the boat was directed to return to Senegal, accompanied by the Frontex vessel, but the Senegalese authorities refused to accept the boat. It is claimed that Spanish authorities then instructed the Frontex crew to accompany the boat back to GuineaConakry (believed to be its original departure point). An agreement had allegedly been reached between the Spanish government and the crew of Happy Day that if they returned the boat to its port of origin they would not be prosecuted for people trafficking. The following day the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement retracting the one made the previous day and claimed that it had formally requested the government of Guinea-Conakry to bring legal action against the crew and had sought help from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to repatriate the migrants to their country of origin. A spokesperson for the government of Guinea-Conakry denied all knowledge of this request. The Frontex boat accompanied Happy Day to the edge of its area of jurisdiction (between Senegalese and Guinean waters) where they were obliged to send the boat on alone. Happy Day then spent a week anchored at the port of Kamsar in Guinea-Conakry as the authorities refused to allow the migrants to disembark. On 3 April in a statement to El País, a spokesperson for the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that he no longer considered Spain to be an interested party. Human rights organisations continued to raise concerns regarding the return alone of unaccompanied minor migrants and asylum-seekers to Morocco and other North and West African countries without ensuring adequate opportunities for them to seek asylum where appropriate and with inadequate legal and physical protection. Two NGOs, CEAR and SOS-Racismo presented reports on this topic to the National Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo) and to political parties. Furthermore, statistics published in February by the Ministry of the Interior indicate that the probability of a migrant minor being returned to their country of origin is greatly influenced by which Spanish Autonomous Community their case is processed in. Although it is the national government which orders the repatriation of migrants, autonomous governments are responsible for putting the order into effect through their own resolutions. As a result, over half of the minors repatriated from Spain in 2006 were repatriated from the autonomous community of Madrid (despite the fact that Madrid does not receive an equivalent number of minor migrants), according to media reports. AI is particularly concerned by the lack of protection guarantees in these expulsions. Amnesty International Death during deportation On 9 June the irregular migrant and Nigerian citizen Osamuyia Akpitaye died during his attempted forcible deportation from Spain to Nigeria. According to witness reports the two law enforcement officers accompanying Osamauyia Akpitaye on the Iberia flight from Madrid to Lagos tied his feet and hands and gagged his mouth, allegedly with adhesive tape, to counteract his resistance to being deported. Some witnesses also claim to have seen police officers beating him. Osamuyia Akpitaye died shortly after take off and the plane was forced to return to Spain, where it landed at Alicante at approximately 6.30pm. An autopsy determined his cause of death as asphyxiation. The victim’s family AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007