A Moroccan fact-finding mission concluded this Wednesday with the death “by asphyxiation” of African migrants who perished in “jostling” during an attempt to enter the Spanish enclave of Melilla (northern Morocco) at the end of June. , exonerating the police. “23 migrants died following the attempt to cross to Melilla,” confirmed Amina Bouayach, president of the National Human Rights Council (CNDH), an official body responsible for investigating the scene after the tragedy. A total of 217 people were injured, 77 migrants and 140 police. Spanish aid workers reported a higher death toll of 37.
“No body was buried and it was decided to carry out autopsies to determine the circumstances of the deaths,” Bouayach said during a press conference in Rabat to present the preliminary findings of the “information mission entrusted to the CNDH. After examining the corpses, Dr. Adil el-Sehimi, who took part in this mission, said he favored the track of “mechanical asphyxia” as the cause of death, while recommending waiting for the results of the autopsies which are “still in progress”.
“Crowded into this narrow area”
In its preliminary report, the CNDH described the modus operandi of this “attack of an unprecedented singularity” when around 2,000 irregular migrants tried to force the border crossing with the Spanish enclave of Melilla, from the bordering Moroccan city of Nador on June 24. “Armed with sticks and stones, the migrants, mostly Sudanese and coming in large numbers, separated into two groups: the first stormed a border post closed since 2018 and the second climbed the walls topped with nearby barbed wire,” according to the CNDH.
It is at the level of the buffer zone – equipped with manual turnstiles allowing the passage of only one person at a time – of the border post that the tragedy took place, he specifies. “A large number of migrants found themselves crammed into this narrow area, which caused jostling resulting in the suffocation of the migrants”, explains the Council, which regrets that the border post remained closed on the Spanish side.
As for the “excessive use” of force by the police, denounced by the UN, the African Union (AU) and NGOs, the CNDH argues that the repression followed “the danger of the large number of armed migrants from sticks and stones. “The police did not use any firearms,” he said. Faced with videos that have gone viral on social networks and showing migrants being beaten to the ground by Moroccan agents, local authorities told the CNDH that these were “isolated cases”.
Series of violent clashes
The June 24 tragedy was preceded by a series of violent clashes the previous week during search operations by security forces targeting makeshift camps near Nador. These clashes injured dozens of police officers, according to local authorities.
At the same time, the trial of a group of 29 migrants, including a minor, opened this Wednesday in Nador, prosecuted for “illegal entry into Moroccan soil”, “violence against law enforcement officers” but also “participation in a criminal gang with a view to organizing and facilitating illegal immigration abroad”. “During the hearing, the prosecution presented the medical certificates of law enforcement officers injured during the clashes. The judge decided to summon them,” said Khalid Ameza, lawyer for the defendants.
This migratory tragedy is the deadliest ever to occur during the many attempts by sub-Saharan migrants to enter Melilla and the neighboring Spanish enclave of Ceuta, which constitute the EU’s only land borders with the African continent.