Five people killed and 322 injured were injured this Friday in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, in North Africa, when thousands of immigrants forced and tried to jump the border fence with Morocco, according to data from the Spanish authorities.
The dead are all immigrants who tried to jump the border fence from Morocco to Melilla. and were denounced by the Moroccan authorities.
Among the injured are 189 Moroccan and Spanish police officers and 133 immigrants.according to the same official sources in both countries.
Some 2,000 people tried to enter Melilla illegallyfrom Morocco, and 133 managed to pass into Spanish territoryaccording to city officials.
on the moroccan side about 1,000 people were arrestedaccording to Moroccan authorities quoted by the EFE agency, who assured that there were also dozens of wounded in Moroccan territory, between police and civilians.
In recent days there had already been clashes in Morocco between groups of migrants who were concentrated near the border with Melilla, the same sources said.
The city authorities revealed that some 2,000 people were concentrated in Moroccan territory near Melilla and started approaching the border at 06:40and a police device was activated by both countries.
A group of 500 people still managed to reach the fence that separates the two territoriesafter having destroyed access to a checkpoint that was closed.
It was a “perfectly organized and violent” group, according to the Spanish Government Delegation in Melilla.
The Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla are the only land borders of the European Union (EU) with the African continent (with Morocco, in both cases).
This is the first attempt to massively violate the borders of the enclaves since the normalization of diplomatic relations between Madrid and Rabatlast March, after a year of tensions.
The crisis between Morocco and Spain was related to the stay in Spain in April 2021 of the leader of the Saharawi independence movement Polisario Front, to be treated after an infection caused by Covid-19.
The Polisario Front, supported by Algeria, contests the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.
The diplomatic tension between Madrid and Rabat triggered the entryin mid-May, of more than 10,000 immigrants in Ceuta, thanks to a relaxation of controls by Morocco.
Last March, bilateral relations have normalizedafter the Spanish government publicly assumed that the proposal presented by Rabat in 2007 for Western Sahara to be an autonomous region controlled by Morocco is “the most serious, credible and realistic basis for resolving this dispute.”
Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony occupied by Morocco for 47 years, in the context of a decolonization process.
Spain has long argued that Morocco’s control of Western Sahara was an occupation and that a UN-sponsored referendum should be the way to decide the territory’s future.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez has already praised Morocco’s collaboration in the “violent and organized” assault on the Melilla border fence.
The right-wing opposition of the PP called for the resignation of the Minister of Internal Administration and questioned the purpose of changing Spain’s position in relation to Western Sahara.
The extreme right of Vox, for its part, asked Spain to demand, at next week’s NATO summit in Madrid, the protection of the southern border of the Atlantic Alliance, that is, the “immediate, effective protection and durable of Ceuta and Melilla”. ”. .
Source: Observadora
