Twenty-three migrants died on Friday trying to forcibly cross nearly 2,000 African-origin illegal immigrants into the Spanish enclave of Melilla in northern Morocco, according to an updated report released Saturday night by Moroccan local authorities.
23 people died in Melilla on Friday when nearly 2,000 African migrants tried to force their way into this Spanish enclave in Moroccan territory.
Spain on Saturday strongly condemned “an attack” on its territorial integrity and accused “mafia”. Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the drama as a “violent and organized (…) attack by human trafficking mafias against a city that is Spanish territory”. Melilla is landlocked on Moroccan territory. “It was therefore an attack on the territorial integrity of our country,” he added during a press conference in Madrid, praising the work of the Moroccan gendarmerie, “which worked in coordination with the Spanish security forces and bodies.
According to the Moroccan authorities, around 140 members of the Moroccan security forces were injured. According to sources from the Spanish prefecture, a total of 130 migrants managed to enter Melilla on Friday, one of whom remained in hospital. The 23 migrants who died died “becoming bumped into and falling from the iron fence” during “an attack characterized by the use of very violent methods by the migrants,” underlined a source from the authorities of the province of Nador, a town on the border with Melilla in northern Morocco. According to the same authorities, 18 migrants and a police officer remain under medical supervision in hospitals in Nador and Oujda. “Your condition is stable.”
The deadliest toll
The toll is – by far – the deadliest ever recorded in the many attempts by migrants from sub-Saharan Africa to enter Melilla and the other Spanish city of Ceuta. The two enclaves form the EU’s only borders with the African continent. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reacted together to express “their deepest concerns” and to recall the need “in all circumstances to ensure the safety of migrants and refugees priority” and “the importance of finding durable solutions for people on the move”.
In Morocco, voices were raised on Saturday calling for an investigation. The main human rights organization has called for the “opening of a speedy and transparent investigation” into this unprecedented “tragedy,” Mohamed Amine Abidar, president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) told AFP. in Nador. Other migrant support NGOs have joined the call, as has the first Moroccan union to also defend migrant workers, the Democratic Labor Organization (ODT). He called on the government to “launch an investigation into this tragic tragedy and do what is necessary for the benefit of the victims on both sides, the illegals and the police.”
“Disproportionate” Response
In Spain, they were joined by an MP from the radical left-wing Podemos party, an ally of the Socialists in Mr Sánchez’s minority government. “An investigation is needed to clarify the facts and accountability,” claimed Idoia Villanueava, Podemos’ head of international affairs, in a tweet.
Many testimonies underscore the violence on both sides during Friday’s events. “It’s the most ‘violent’ attempt to enter Melilla I’ve ever seen,” said Rachid Nerjjari, a waiter at a café across from the border fence in Morocco’s Barrio Chino neighborhood. He said he saw “migrants armed with sticks and iron bars, a first in the region.” The actions of the Moroccan security forces also raise many questions.
Eduardo de Castro, the president (mayor) of Melilla and the highest political authority in this autonomous city, while acknowledging that the influx of migrants was “violent”, denounced a “disproportionate response” by Morocco. For AMDH’s Mr Abidar, “the main cause of this disaster is the migration policy pursued by the European Union in cooperation with Morocco”. On site, calm had returned on Saturday in Nador, a town on the border with the Spanish enclave, and around the high iron fence that separates Morocco from Melilla.
Return to calm
And there was no sign of migrants in the city. According to AMDH’s Mr Abidar, they would have generally moved to the south of the country “for fear of being relocated by the Moroccan authorities”. A witness said he saw several buses carrying migrants from Nador. The situation was also calm on the Spanish side of the fence, according to footage from public broadcaster TVE, which showed workers repairing damage to the fence. This massive attempt to invade one of the two Spanish enclaves is the first since relations between Madrid and Rabat were normalized in March after a diplomatic row that lasted nearly a year.