The Moroccan authorities raised this Saturday to 23 the number of deaths on the border between the Spanish enclave of Melilla and Morocco.
“Five migrants diedbringing the death toll to 23″a source from the Nador province authorities told the French news agency AFP, adding that “18 migrants and a member of the police remain under medical surveillance.”
The official figure previously revealed by the Moroccan authorities was 18 dead.
On Friday, about Two thousand people tried to enter Melilla illegallyfrom Morocco, and 133 managed to cross into Spanish territory, city officials said.
Some 1,000 people were arrested on the Moroccan side, according to Moroccan authorities quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.
However, the figures presented by human rights organizations differ from those of the authorities: the Moroccan Association for Human Rights puts the total number of dead at 27, while the non-governmental organization Caminhando Fronteiras puts 37 deaths.
According to the American newspaper New York Times, a video of the moment of the attempt to cross the border, shared by the Moroccan Association for Human Rights and confirmed by geolocation, revealed “Dozens of bodies and wounded will be piled on top of each other along the border fencesurrounded by Moroccan security agents in riot gear.”
Also this Saturday, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned about “the need to prioritize the safety of migrants in all circumstances and of refugees”.
According to EFE, both international organizations lamented the registered victims, considering that this moment “reinforces more than ever the importance of finding lasting solutions for displaced people”, calling to define “paths for a safe, orderly and regular migration”.
In the last days, there were already clashes in Morocco between groups of migrants that were concentrated near the border with Melilla, said the same sources.
The city authorities revealed that some 2,000 people had gathered in Moroccan territory near Melilla and began to approach the border at 6:40 a.m., a police device having been activated by both countries.
A group of 500 people still managed 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 break the borders of the enclaves. since the normalization of diplomatic relations between Madrid and Rabat last 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 Frente Polisario, 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.
Bilateral relations were normalized last March, after 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 the resolution of this litigation”. .
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, praised this Friday Morocco’s collaboration in the “violent and organized” assault on the Melilla border fence.
Source: Observadora
