Batted back from the chance of a better life

DAKAR - Crippled by polio and fleeing civil war in his native Ivory Coast, Bakary Kone thought he had found asylum when Spanish coastguards picked up his boat packed with African immigrants.

But his ordeal as a refugee had only just begun. After 40 days in a detention centre on the Canary Islands, he was put on a flight which left him stranded and penniless in Mauritania.

Spanish authorities said he could apply for asylum because of the conflict in his native country, but Kone was deported before he had chance.

Leaning on a metal crutch in a dusty yard, he grasps the crumpled form which told migrants they could claim asylum on the grounds persecution, war or civil conflict.

"We were well treated but we were not told the truth," said the 25-year-old. "They gave us a form but they did not tell us how to apply. There was a lawyer but I could not talk to him."

Spain is struggling to cope with a deluge of African immigrants arriving on the Canary Islands. With its detention centres overflowing, Madrid has scrambled to reach deals with African countries to return migrants home.

But many would-be migrants like Kone complain their right to asylum is overlooked and they are deported to the first country that will take them.

"I fled Ivory Coast because my mother and two brothers died in the war," Kone said, referring to a conflict sparked when rebels seized the north of the former French colony in 2002.

"They said they would return us to the Ivory Coast but they sent us to Mauritania, which caused problems. Spain does not have a deportation agreement with Ivory Coast."

With two other repatriated migrants, Kone hitch-hiked to the Senegalese capital Dakar, hoping to scratch a living.

"There is no work here, I have no money to eat and nowhere to sleep."

While European politicians praised treatment of migrants during a visit to the Canary Islands, rights groups complain of arbitrary deportations.

"There are people being wrongly repatriated and in doing so they are being turned into de facto refugees," said Ignacio Diaz de Aguilar, president of Spanish organisation CEAR, which helps migrants and refugees.

Ivorian Ismael Fofana paid € 1500 ($3,084) for his place in the same boat as Kone and about 40 other immigrants heading for the Canary Islands.

Fofana moved to Europe for a chance to earn money for his family after his father died in 2004.

"My family sold the house to give me the money to travel," said the 17-year-old "I do not dare to call to say I have been repatriated."

"I was the hope of my whole family ... I dare not return. I will try again."

- REUTERS