Spain accused of pushing migrants north through Europe

Frederic had never planned to journey to France. His gruelling three-year odyssey from the Ivory Coast had always had Spain as its final destination, a country in which, he had dreamed, he could build a better life.

Yet, two months after he landed in the southern Spanish port of Algeciras, plucked from the sea by the coastguard, he finds himself more than 1000 kilometres to the north in Irún, a rainy Basque Country town nestled on the French border.

He is far from alone: NGOs working in Irún say hundreds of migrants have arrived in the last month alone, drawn by the relative ease of the border crossing. While some make their way to the north independently, most arrive on buses sent by the Spanish…

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