A/HRC/4/30 page 17 IV. FLEEING FROM HUNGER - THE WORLD’S HUNGER REFUGEES 47. In many regions of the world, particularly in Africa, famine, destitution and chronic hunger are forcing people to leave their homes, land and even their countries. Hunger and famine are due not only to drought, but also to economic problems as well as political problems of corruption and mismanagement. It is also due to the hypocritical policies of developed countries on agriculture and climate change, which are further contributing to hunger, poverty and inequality in developing countries. Famine and food are often used as a weapon of war against certain groups of people who are forced to flee for their lives. Yet hunger and violations of the human right to food are still not seen by the international community as good enough reasons or sufficient legal grounds for people to flee their countries. Tens of thousands of people fleeing from hunger and famine and crossing borders, especially if they try to flee to developed countries, are treated as “illegal migrants”, arrested and held in often appalling conditions in detention and processing centres. Refused asylum, they are usually forcibly deported home, even when their lives remain at risk from famine and chronic hunger. 48. The situation is particularly dramatic for people fleeing from sub-Saharan Africa. How many young Africans are leaving their countries, risking their lives to try to reach Europe? It is estimated that about 2 million people try to enter the European Union illegally every year, and about 2,000 of them drown in the Mediterranean Sea. They try to reach the Canary Islands from Mauritania or Senegal, or to cross the straits of Gibraltar from Morocco. According to the Government of Spain, 37,685 African migrants reached Spanish shores in 2005. Another 22,824 migrants reached the islands of Italy or Malta, after leaving from the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya or Tunisia.40 They also try to reach Greece through Turkey or Egypt. Markku Niskala, Secretary General of the International Federation of the Red Cross has appealed: “This crisis is being completely ignored: not only does no one come to the help of these desperate people, but there is no organization that even compiles statistics that record this daily tragedy.”41 49. On the night of 28 September 2005, at least five African men were shot dead, when several hundred people trying to enter Spanish territory by climbing over two razor-wire fences separating Ceuta from Morocco, were confronted by law-enforcement officials.42 On 6 October 2005, another six men were shot dead on the Moroccan side of the border. Amnesty International called for an independent international investigation into these events, as well as into further reports that a number of people had been injured as a result of ill-treatment and use of excessive force by Spanish and Moroccan security forces in Ceuta and Melilla.43 40 Tribune de Genève, 14 December 2006. 41 Ibid. 42 Amnesty International, 3 October 2005 http://www.amnestyinternational.be/doc/ article5981.html. 43 Human Rights Watch, 13 October 2005 http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/10/13/ spain11866.htm.