Human rights activists in Spain and Morocco have called for investigations into the two countries after a massive attempt to climb the border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla left at least 23 dead.
Spanish authorities said about 2,000 Africans headed for the iron fence on Friday morning, and more than 500 managed to slip into a border control area after cutting an opening with shears.
Moroccan officials initially said five people had died in what they described as a “stampede”. At the last minute on Saturday, Moroccan state television said the death toll had risen to 23 people.
NGOs on the ground said the death toll could be higher. “We have confirmed 37 deaths in the Melilla tragedy,” said Helena Maleno Garzón, whose organization, Walking Borders, is in constant contact with Africans who want to cross into Spain from Morocco.
Walking Borders joined more than half a dozen, including Amnesty International Spain, to call for an investigation into what is considered the deadliest day in recent memory along the section of the EU’s only land border with Africa.
Videos shared online by the Moroccan Human Rights Association appeared to show dozens of people crowded in an area next to the border fence – some bloody and many standing still – as Moroccan forces with riot gear watched them after the riot. crossing.
In this violent and inhumane way migrants were treated yesterday at the barrier in the Chinatown of Nador. He was left without help at the site for hours, which increased the number of deaths. pic.twitter.com/YdKQiPGtzK
– AMDH Nador (adNadorAmdh) June 25, 2022
“They were left there without help for hours, which increased the number of deaths,” the group said on Twitter. In another video shared by the organization, a Moroccan security guard appeared to be using a truncheon to attack a person who was lying down.
A young man who tried to make the crossing said that both those trying to cross and the police had thrown stones at each other, but noted that the police had the advantage of bringing protection. “Moroccan agents were very violent, more aggressive than other times, and people panicked,” he told Spanish newspaper El País. “That’s what caused the stampede.”
In previous days, police had carried out several raids in camps where migrants and refugees slept poorly while waiting for the opportunity to cross into Spain, he said. Police confiscated food and any cash they could find, leaving migrants anxious and exhausted as they struggled with higher levels of precariousness.
He said Moroccan forces had thrown stones and fired tear gas directly at those trying to cross. “They usually throw it in the air, but this time it was aimed directly at people. And they were so weak that they fell at the slightest touch, “he said.” Many died because they were weak and hungry. “
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Moroccan forces had worked in cooperation with Spanish police to “defend” what he described as a “violent assault” and “attack on territorial integrity.” “of Spain.
Spanish authorities said 49 Civil Guard officers were slightly injured, while Morocco said 140 of its security forces were injured. In total, 133 people crossed the border.
“If anyone is responsible for everything that seems to have happened on this border, it is the mafias that traffic in human beings,” Sanchez said.
His comments were questioned from the top ranks of the coalition government, however. “No one should die like that,” Yolanda Diaz, one of five ministers representing junior coalition partner Unidas Podemos, said on Twitter. “It’s time to clarify what happened.”
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The Spanish Refugee Commission said asylum seekers fleeing the armed conflict in Sudan were among those trying to cross and that “the indiscriminate use of violence to manage migration and control borders” had prevented people who were eligible for international protection from reaching Spanish territory.
The deadly crossing was the first since Spain and Morocco settled relations after a one-year dispute centered on Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1976.
Several NGOs, including Walking Borders and the Moroccan Human Rights Association, established a direct link between this renewed cooperation and events on the border, in a joint letter describing the deaths as a “tragic symbol of European policies for outsource EU borders “. , with the complicity of a southern country, Morocco ”.