Madrid, Sep 23 (DPA) Small groups of people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Iraq and Afghanistan have been increasingly trickling into Spain unlawfully for years, undertaking dramatic journeys to find a better life.

Asians heading for Spain often travel more than 10,000 km, flying for over 8,000 km, crossing African deserts and boarding rickety boats to southern Spain or the Canary Islands.

Several boats carrying large numbers of Asians arrived last and this year, most recently in mid-September when about 160 Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans landed on the Canary Island of Tenerife.

Their fishing boat was rusty, filthy and had several leaks.

The Senegalese crew from Africa had removed the rudder, apparently with the intention of leaving the Asians adrift while they escaped Spanish police in the vessel's only lifeboat. They were, however, detained on board.

Asians travel to Spain with the help of Asia-based criminal rings which have contacts in the Gulf, Africa and Europe, according to Moroccan police who partly dismantled one such network earlier this year.

Morocco accused African security services, diplomats posted in Gulf countries and Spanish police of involvement in the traffic.

According to a UN report, Asians pay $12,000 for the trip to Spain.

They are first flown with tourist visas to Senegal, Mali, Guinea-Conakry, Togo or Burkina Faso, from where they are taken by road to departure points of boats on the West African coast.

Many boats earlier left from Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. But increased surveillance there prompted people-smugglers to move their operations further down south, to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau.

Some Asians do not fly directly to Africa but pass through Dubai, Jeddah or possibly Turkey. Others seek jobs on cargo ships and desert them in European ports or travel as stowaways.

"We are here to work," said a Pakistani immigrant in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast, through which Asians also seek entry to the Spanish mainland.

"I don't have friends here, I don't even know where I'm going to go. But a war could break out between my country and India and people are fleeing," he added.

While African would-be immigrants start making their way towards Europe through countries on their own continent, Asians partly make the same harsh journey, but with the additional difficulty of travelling in a region they often know next to nothing about.

When Morocco deported migrants to the desert following massive attempts by Africans to enter the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta last year, the deportees included dozens of Asians, some of whom Spanish reporters found exhausted and weeping in the Sahara.

"I sold my land to move to Europe," explained Mohammed Arif Hoshain, 23, from Bangladesh. "I paid and was flown through Qatar to Casablanca but I was cheated.

"I went to Moroccan police to ask to be taken back to my country, but they beat me and took me to the desert," he complained.

Many of the Asians arriving in southern Europe intend to travel on to Britain, and the reasons that make them choose a long and complicated route through Africa are not entirely clear.

Spanish police believe that whenever surveillance is stepped up on other routes, traffic increases on the Spanish route.

Growing numbers of Asians now appear to stay in Spain instead of moving on to other European countries. Spain's Chinese community has quadrupled to nearly 100,000 people since 1999.