It looks so easy. There is Europe just ten miles across the Straits of Gibraltar. The coastline is well defined, the sea glassy with a gentle swell, the wind slight. Paradise beckons like the Sirens but nobody knows how many Moroccans have drowned trying to cross these waters in the last few years, but the number is between one thousand and two thousand since 1991.

The Straits are one of the most treacherous waterways in the world , with a multitude of cross currents and a ferocious, capricious wind that changes direction at the whim of the gods. Odysseus underwent one of his trials hereabouts. Although the Moroccans are embarking of an Odyssey of their own, they are not mythical characters but flesh and blood, very much at the mercy not of the dictates of Neptune and his mates but of unscrupulous mafias who run cruel organizations preying on the dreams of the unwary hopefuls.

The mafias charge the illegal immigrants large sums of money, of $20.000 and more , with only the promise on landing them on European soil. And so often not even this promise of a 10 mile crossing is fulfilled. They drown, their bodies washed up on the wind-surfing beaches of Tarifa or the nearby nudist beaches. The money, arduously saved and contributed by parents, the extended family, even friends, is safely in the pockets of the Moroccans and Spanish who peddle in human beings.

The transport is an open fishing boat with an outboard motor, the type that one man can manage and with four aboard it s crowded. They pack in up to thirty, usually young men but sometimes women and children. Occasionally pregnant women have been known to make the trip, so as to give birth in Europe. But the sea does not discriminate.

Why do they come? Surveys indicate that 70% of the youth of Morocco want to emigrate to Spain, to Europe. To France itself not so much as they know they will meet discrimination. To Spain, they feel more comfortable as there is work for them. But there is still a residual discrimination perhaps dating back 500 years but more plausibly to the Civil War of 60 years ago when Franco s army which crossed the Straits was made up of a large proportion of Moroccan soldiers. As conquering armies tend to do, they raped and pillaged. It is not forgotten.

I believe they are lured by the images of television. They can t get to Pamela Anderson and her lifeguards but they can get to the nearer and next best thing. The statistics tell a story and starting with the economic we are told that the annual Gross National Product of Morocco is $3,681 as compared to Spain s $14.324. Life expectancy for the Moroccan male is 65.3 years as compared to Spain s 77.6 years. Infant mortality in Morocco is 51% as compared to 7% in Spain. I am one of those people who religiously doubt any statistic emanating from an official body but this last figure I can vouch for from speaking to Moroccan friends.

"How many are there in your family?" One blithely asks.

"Well, there were ten children, but now there are three." Comes the answer, time and again. I, at least don t feel inclined to enquire further. It would appear that the statistics are on the conservative side.

Some say they come for the good life, of alcohol and sex. Although this must be a motivating force for many young men, it is not the experience that I know from the young men and women of my acquaintance and friendship. They are in fact surprisingly religious, more so than their parents. Never did much for me, but anything that gets you through the day, I guess.

In Morocco, the markets are full of good quality food. There are poor people of course but the really destitute are looked after by the community. However they want more, whatever, more is. They don t want to stand around doing nothing as you see often enough. They want New York, San Francisco, Paris, even Seville. Yet arrogant people like me say that we want to escape from it all and we catch a fast air-conditioned ferry to do so. The Moroccans come the other way in open rowing boats with an outboard and at least some die in the attempt. King Hassan has some questions to answer.