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| - A leading Spanish rights activist said Monday she had been "violently deported" from Morocco where she lives, accusing the Moroccan and Spanish authorities of harassment and endangering her life. Helena Maleno, who set up Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish NGO that offers a lifeline to migrants stranded at sea, said she was on January 23 refused entry to Morocco, her home for nearly 20 years, and deported to Spain. "I was deported and violently expelled from my home, Morocco," Maleno said. She had flown into Tangiers airport, but was put on a plane to Barcelona, separating her from her 14-year-old daughter for over a month, the activist told a news conference in Madrid. "The police were waiting for me at Tangiers airport... I didn't know what was happening and it was a very distressing time," she told reporters. Her papers and possessions were confiscated, she was refused water, not allowed to take medication, not given a fresh mask and silenced when she tried to speak in treatment she described as "humiliating". Spain's interior ministry was "aware of the deportation" but the foreign ministry was not, she said. There was no immediate response from the ministry nor from the authorities in Rabat. An expert in migration and human trafficking Maleno began helping migrants years ago by acting as a go-between for those in trouble at sea with the naval authorities responsible for rescuing them -- a work which continues to be the focus of Caminando Fronteras. But in recent years she has been investigated in both Spain and Morocco on charges of aiding illegal immigration and even human trafficking. A court in Morocco dropped a case against her two years ago, shortly after similar charges were dismissed in Spain, although she said the harassment has not stopped. "Since April 2020 I and my family have suffered 37 attacks and I hold the Spanish and the Moroccan government responsible," she said, adding her house had been broken into three times. Although Morocco had closed the criminal case against Maleno in 2019, the "attacks and persecution" did not end, with Front Line Defenders -- a Dublin-based NGO -- saying she had suffered surveillance, physical attacks, arrests, had her home raided and suffered from gender-based defamation. "Helena's case has unfortunately been a textbook example of what can happen to anyone defending rights at the borders of the European Union... despite the fact that courts in both countries have recognised her work is not a crime," said FLD's Maria San Martin. Last year, more than 23,000 migrants reached Spain's Canary Islands, a figure eight times higher than in 2019. But the first three months of this year have already seen twice as many arrive as in the same period of 2020. The Atlantic route is notoriously dangerous. According to Caminando Fronteras, at least 1,851 people died on the route last year. hmw/mg/bp
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