At least 18 people died this Friday, June 24 at the gates of Europe. 2,000 migrants tried in the early hours of the morning to cross the wall between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla.
According to a Moroccan political source, the victims were killed, either in a stampede or by falling from the high wall they were trying to climb. This massive entry attempt into one of the two Spanish enclaves is the first since the normalization of relations between Madrid and Rabat in mid-March, after a diplomatic quarrel lasting almost a year.
As a general rule, those who try to reach Spain, and therefore Europe, via the Spanish enclave of Melilla, bordering Morocco, do so by trying to climb the fence. A fence 6 meters high, very wide and bristling with barbed wire everywhere. This makes the attempt very difficult and dangerous, explains our correspondent in Madrid, François Musseau.
Collaboration between Morocco and Spain
This time, in an unprecedented case, the migrants surprised the police by shearing off one of the mesh doors that leads to Melilla before reaching the detention center. The Civil Guards assured that this attempt was carried out in a very thoughtful, determined, and violent way, despite the use of helicopters.
According to Spanish sources, many more migrants could have passed if the coordination and collaboration with the Moroccan forces had not been excellent, the Moroccan gendarmes having indeed been able to stop most of the candidates for forced passage. The reason? The excellent relations between Madrid and Rabat can be explained by the fact that President Pedro Sanchez supports King Mohamed VI regarding his project for the controlled autonomy of Western Sahara.
Call for “a rapid and transparent investigation”
Morocco’s main human rights organization called for an investigation on Saturday. “We call for the opening of a rapid and transparent investigation,” said Mohamed Amine Abidar, the president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) branch in Nador, in northern Morocco.
We denounced the policy of the European Union and we asked for an open investigation into everything that happened and for the injured to have access to hospitals. We also asked that Morocco stop playing the role of policeman On the Spanish side, Eduardo de Castro, the president of the enclave of Melilla, the highest political authority of this autonomous city, denounced a “disproportionate response” from Morocco to the attempt to force illegal immigrants.
On the Spanish side, Eduardo de Castro, the president of the enclave of Melilla, the highest political authority of this autonomous city, denounced a “disproportionate response” from Morocco to the attempt to force illegal immigrants.
Pedro Sanchez accuses “the mafias”
Calm returned on Saturday to Nador, a city bordering the Spanish enclave, as well as around the high iron fence that separates Moroccan territory from Melilla, according to AFP journalists. There is no trace of migrants in town. According to Mr. Abidar, “they would have moved away for fear of being moved by the Moroccan authorities”, generally towards the south of the country. A witness saw several buses carrying migrants out of Nador.
For his part, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez accused Saturday “the mafias that engage in human trafficking” of being responsible for the “violent assault” on the border with Morocco in Melilla, during a conference the press in Madrid. The head of the socialist government considers this an attack on the territorial integrity of Spain, reports our correspondent in Madrid, Diane Cambon. Sanchez did not blame Morocco this time for turning a blind eye to the illegal entry of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Melilla. On the contrary, he congratulated both the Spanish and Moroccan police forces for their collaboration in the fight against illegal immigration.
Madrid, which has renewed good diplomatic relations with Morocco, was pleased to see the drop in migratory pressure from Morocco on its coasts of the peninsula but also in the Canaries. On Friday, 500 sub-Saharan migrants managed to cross the border by jumping over barbed wire fences at the risk of their lives.
