Three Moroccan Asylum Seekers Escape Madrid Airport, Raising Security Concerns

The three Moroccans managed to escape on Monday morning. They were six to start with and three were intercepted by the police, according to the JUPOL police union in a statement relayed by Europa Press. The security forces are working to find these three Moroccans, who add to the four others who had escaped the previous week.

Faced with this repetition of escapes, the JUPOL union calls on the Ministry of the Interior to take urgent measures to strengthen security in the asylum seekers’ waiting rooms at Madrid airport, specifying that the three new escapees took the same hole in the ceiling of the room that the four Moroccans of last week had used.

It is a "breach in the facility that has not been repaired either by the Ministry of the Interior or by AENA, the owner of the facilities," says JUPOL, which called on its social networks last weekend to repair these facilities after the escape on Wednesday. Last January, nearly 30 asylum seekers of Maghreb origin had escaped from this airport.

The police union had warned about the "risks to air safety" because some migrants were wandering on the airport runways after their escape. Mostly Sahrawis, they fear being sent to prison once they are deported to Morocco, preferring to flee.