E/CN.4/2004/76/Add.3 page 13 49. The majority of the migrants who are intercepted have false passports and visas or else have got rid of their papers on arrival in Moroccan territory in order to make identification and repatriation more difficult. In other cases, the traffickers themselves are said to have confiscated their identity papers. The Special Rapporteur met with irregular migrants from Liberia and Guinea who spoke of their experience and described how they were intercepted, briefly held in custody at the police station - where they were given no food - brought before the court - where the case was not considered or decided on an individual basis and they were not provided with interpreters - and escorted to the border under a collective expulsion order. 50. In the wilaya of Oujda alone - the main overland route into Morocco - the number of irregular immigrants arrested climbed from 2,151 in 2001 to 3,017 in 2002, and reached 3,648 in the first nine months of 2003. As the local authorities confirmed to the Special Rapporteur, there is a high concentration of migrant traffic in this area, especially the 60 kilometre-long border zone to the north of Oujda, an area that is hard to police effectively because of the nature of the terrain and the existence of natural caves and abandoned dwellings where migrants can find shelter. The migrants use the services of ad hoc guides or smugglers to cross dangerous areas, paying them varying amounts depending on the risk involved, the migrants’ own financial means and the weather. Intercepted sub-Saharan migrants are generally escorted back to Algeria via Morocco’s eastern border - in fact in the Oujda area - from where many then run off into Morocco. Irregulars intercepted in the wilaya are dealt with on the spot, but the town is the main transit point for migrants intercepted elsewhere in the country and escorted to the Algerian border by the gendarmerie. 51. As the Moroccan Government has repeatedly emphasized, the country’s borders are extremely long, with more than 3,500 kilometres of coastline and similarly long land borders with Mauritania and Algeria. Making the borders watertight would require logistical resources that Morocco simply does not have. During her visit to Oujda, the Special Rapporteur was informed that, despite the mobilization and coordinated efforts of all the security services, the results were not very satisfactory: there are border checkpoints and observation posts, checks on the roads to Nador and Melilla, and checks on the trains, but the resources available are not sufficient to monitor the border zones. Coastguard patrols are subject to similar constraints. 52. The situation in the wilaya of Nador, near Melilla, is very similar to that in Tétuan. The Special Rapporteur was informed by the local authorities that the majority of the irregular migrants intercepted are North Africans, followed by sub-Saharans. Various search operations were being organized by the Sûreté Nationale, the gendarmerie, the auxiliary armed forces and the local authorities to combat illegal migration. 4. The rights of irregular migrants in Morocco 53. The Special Rapporteur visited the border with Ceuta and Melilla, where she saw many sub-Saharans. They were moving around the countryside at will, asking local people for food and making their way towards the Spanish border, which they try to cross at night using ladders they have made to get over the 3.10-metre wall blocking their way. 54. According to information received from NGOs and migrants interviewed in situ, living conditions for irregular migrants in Morocco are very precarious. Migrants nearly always live in working-class districts on the outskirts of towns, and sometimes six may be living in a single