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Can all the light be shed on the drama that occurred on June 24 at the entrance to Melilla, in northern Morocco? That day, nearly 1,500 migrants tried to cross the mesh barriers separating the Spanish enclave from Moroccan territory – the only land border, with Ceuta, of the European Union in Africa. At least 23 migrants lost their lives there.
A month after these events, which sparked international indignation, each country blames itself. Spain accuses the “mafias that engage in human trafficking” to have orchestrated “the assault”. Morocco criticizes “very violent methods” immigrants and the “deliberate laxity” of Algeria in border control, while NGOs denounce the brutality of the police and demand an independent investigation to understand what could have led to such a human toll.
In Morocco, two reports were published in July, which delivered two divergent versions of the facts. That of the National Council for Human Rights (CNDH, an official body), published on July 13, concludes that 23 deaths “by suffocation” – pending confirmation by autopsies – at the time when the migrants were “clumped” at the Barrio Chino border post. It is in this narrow passage, equipped at its end with turnstiles to curb the flow of entry and exit, that a “jostling” took place “with crowd movement in panic”according to the CNDH, which regrets that the border post remained closed on the Spanish side.
While the UN, the African Union and NGOs have denounced a “excessive use of force” by the forces of order, the CNDH exonerates them. They did not use lethal weapons, assures the instance, but tear gas and batons to face an assault “unpublished”, characterized by a “acute violence” perpetrated by “a very large number of migrants armed with sticks, stones and sharp weapons”.
“Cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment
A week later, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) conversely denounced, in a harsh report, a “unprecedented repression by the Moroccan authorities with the complicity of their Spanish counterparts”. Main independent association for the defense of human rights in Morocco, the NGO castigates “excessive use”, by the Moroccan authorities, tear gas “for almost an hour” against hundreds of migrants in the confined and cramped space of the border post, as they attempted to open the gate and scale the barrier.
Buses to push back migrants arrived faster than ambulances, reports AMDH
The AMDH also denounces the “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” then committed against the wounded and the lack of care for several hours. The association has around twenty videos – some of which have been widely relayed on social networks – showing dozens of bodies, dead or injured, lying on the ground and piled up on top of each other, some continuing to receive truncheons and kicks. The buses assigned to the refoulement of migrants arrived faster than the ambulances, reports the AMDH. The NGO also criticizes the action of the Spanish police, who have “use of tear gas and rubber bullets”, did not mobilize their ambulances and turned back “hot” a hundred immigrants.
The AMDH counts 27 dead and 64 people missing. “If these European, Spanish and Moroccan migration policies have always caused deaths on the migration routes at sea, this is the first time that these same policies pushed to the limit are deadly on a land barrier”, again denounces the NGO, which links the repression of June 24 to the reconciliation between Spain and Morocco, recorded in April after a year of estrangement, and to the resumption of their cooperation in migration matters. On March 2, in the context of a diplomatic freeze, nearly 2,500 migrants had tried to cross the Melilla barrier. No deaths were recorded at the time, only a few injuries.
In the judicial field, the Spanish General Prosecutor’s Office announced at the end of June that it had requested the opening of an investigation into “the seriousness of the events that occurred”. In Morocco, 33 migrants were sentenced on July 19 in Nador to eleven months in prison. They were prosecuted for “illegal entry” on Moroccan soil, “violence against law enforcement officers”, “armed crowd” and “refusal to comply”. A second group of 29 migrants is prosecuted for “participation in a criminal gang to organize and facilitate illegal immigration abroad”. Their trial is scheduled for August 3.