The twenty meters that separate the Spanish fence from the Moroccan fence became a dead end this Friday. In a mousetrap. Official figures only confirm 23 dead peoplebut humanitarian organizations assure that at least 37 Sub-Saharans lost their lives.
Most died from asphyxiadepending on the version of the moroccan policealthough there was also violent clashes when they tried to jump to Melilla, with agents of the Moroccan security forces. An account that no one dares to give yet as definitive and that writes one of the greatest tragedies that are remembered on this border.
A riot tank and three police vans are still parked in front of the Chinatown border gate. Some police officers guard the fence, others drink coffee on a terrace across the street. Two Moroccan teams are playing on the television of the establishment, there is no trace of the confrontation on Friday.
One of the agents describes it as a “guerra”. He says that he does not remember a jump attempt as violent as this one and recounts that the migrants carried sticks and knives and that they were very organized. This border gate had been closed since the start of the pandemic and he explains that it was not closely guarded when some 2,000 migrants approached and forced the fence to try to set foot on Spanish soil.
The first floor of the Hassani Hospital in nador it is completely silent. A dozen migrants are lying on stretchers in various rooms. In the corridor, a few policemen keep watch. It’s Saturday and there are practically no staff, just a person in charge who doesn’t want to give any details.
In another point of this hospital there are also the corpses of fifteen of the people who lost their lives, as explained by the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights. In a statement signed jointly with other NGOs, they ask that they not be buried until an investigation is opened that brings light and answers to the incident on Friday.
“We will never know the exact death toll.”
“Sub-Saharan migrants have been suffering a lot in these areas for years from the Moroccan gendarmerie,” laments a person in charge of an entity that works with the migrant population. “The police often keep the tents, steal their money and personal belongings and detain them to take them as far as possible,” he laments. He explains that “this time the brutality of sub-Saharan migrants has also been very strong. This time they were carrying sticks, stones and hooks” and he believes that “we will never know the exact number of people who have died”.
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For the Moroccan organization for human rights, the attempted jump in Melilla “is a real catastrophe that shows the first consequences of the latest agreements between Morocco and Spain”. This has been the first massive jump since Madrid and Rabat sealed the new diplomatic phase after a year of crisis. One of the main agreements was cooperation in the control of migratory flows, in addition to reopening the border crossings between Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla.
Several weeks ago hundreds of people from Sudan and other countries of West Africa They were waiting in the forest that surrounds the autonomous city and Mount Gurugú, waiting to jump the fence. As confirmed by several humanitarian sources, the Moroccan police have also intensified the raids and arrests of migrants in different parts of the country in recent weeks. They report that this pressure is causing people who try to reach Europe to have fewer and fewer possibilities and many find themselves at the limit.