What is this?

This is appalling.

Spain accused of abusing Africans
Chicago Sun-Times

MADRID, Spain - A human-rights group accused Spain on Thursday of keeping migrant African children in appalling conditions, including windowless "punishment" cells where they are beaten and denied access to toilets.

The report by New York-based Human Rights Watch said the abuses took place in holding facilities on the Canary Islands, which lie off Africa's northwest coast of and been swamped by a surge in African migration in recent years.

More than 900 children -- mostly boys from Senegal and Morocco -- are crowded into four ''prison-like'' detention centers on Spain's Canary Islands.

Immigrants who are caught are returned to their home countries, but the process can take months.

Simone Troller, European children's rights researcher for Human Rights Watch and the report's author, said that under Spanish law, migrant children are not technically allowed to be detained.

In practice, she said, they are ''kept in almost prison-like conditions.'