MADRID, Oct 8: A leading aid group on Friday decried the apparent abandoning of some 500 immigrants in the Moroccan desert after trying to reach Spanish soil as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded joint action to defuse a ‘highly charged’ issue.

A day after six immigrants died trying to scale border fences to reach the Spanish north African enclave of Melilla, taking the death toll from recent such attempts to 14, Spain began expelling illegal immigrants.

As 73 people were shipped to the Moroccan port of Tangiers, Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders - MSF) said it found some 500 immigrants expelled from Melilla and its twin enclave of Ceuta in the Moroccan desert, fuelling growing international concern over the incidents.

“More than 500 immigrants have been abandoned to their fate in the desert in southern Morocco,” MSF said in a statement released in Madrid.—AFP