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ARCHIVED - 28 Moroccans flee through Barcelona airport after faking medical emergency on flight
One passenger pretended to be pregnant to force the pilot to make an emergency landing in Spain
A plane carrying 228 passengers from Casablanca in Morocco had to be diverted to Barcelona on Wednesday December 7 after one woman claimed she was in labour. When the flight touched down in Spain, 28 irregular migrants, including the pregnant woman, barged past security personnel in an attempt to enter the country illegally.
According to sources from the Government Delegation in Catalonia, the Turkish Pegasus flight was on its way to Istanbul when the pilot made the emergency landing at El Prat airport at around 4.30am. Fourteen of the immigrants were immediately captured by the Guardia Civil but the others managed to flee across the runway and escape.
The pregnant woman was taken to the Hospital de Sant Joan de Déu for examination and it was quickly determined that she was not in labour. She is being considered the ringleader. She has now been accused of the crime of public disorder.
Five of the 14 passengers intercepted by airport security agreed to get back on the plane and the airline staff raised no objections to continuing on with the journey to Turkey.
The others, who did not have the correct documentation to enter Spain legally, will be processed for their return to Morocco.
In a strikingly similar case last November, a passenger on board a flight on the exact same route faked a diabetic coma and the pilot initiated an emergency landing in Palma de Mallorca airport. As emergency personnel attended the ‘unwell’ Moroccan man, 25 other illegal immigrants stormed security guards and fled from the airport. The vast majority were picked up by police within a couple of weeks.
At the time, the government delegate in the Balearic Islands, an astonished Aina Calvo, said this was an “unprecedented event, which had never happened” before in Spain.
Image: Pixabay
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