প্রকাশ: 26/06/2022
The number of people who were killed after they tried to
scale a border fence between Morocco and a Spanish enclave in North Africa rose
to 23 Saturday as human rights organizations in Spain and Morocco called on
both countries to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
Moroccan authorities said the individuals died as a result
of a “stampede” of people who attempted Friday to climb the iron fence that
separates the city of Melilla and Morocco. In a statement, Morocco’s Interior
Ministry said 76 civilians were injured along with 140 Moroccan security
officers.
The ministry initially reported five deaths. Local
authorities cited by Morocco’s official Television 2M updated the number to 18
on Saturday and then reported that the death toll had climbed to 23. The
Moroccan Human Rights Association reported 27 dead, but the figure could not
immediately be confirmed.
Two members of Morocco's security forces and 33 migrants who
were injured during the border breach were being treated at hospitals in the
Moroccan cities of Nador and Oujda, MAP said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Saturday condemned
what he described as a “violent assault” and an “attack on the territorial
integrity” of Spain. Spanish officials said 49 Civil Guards sustained minor
injuries.
“If there is anyone responsible for everything that appears
to have taken place at that border, it is the mafias that traffic in human
beings,” Sánchez said.
His remarks came as the Moroccan Human Rights Association
shared videos on social media that appeared to show dozens of migrants lying on
the ground, many of them motionless and a few bleeding, as Moroccan security
forces stood over them.
“They were left there without help for hours, which
increased the number of deaths,” the human rights group said on Twitter. It
called for a “comprehensive” investigation.
In another of the association’s videos, a Moroccan security
officer appeared to use a baton to strike a person lying on the ground.
In a statement released late Friday, Amnesty International
expressed its “deep concern” over the events at the border.
“Although the migrants may have acted violently in their
attempt to enter Melilla, when it comes to border control, not everything
goes," said Esteban Beltrán, the director of Amnesty International Spain.
"The human rights of migrants and refugees must be respected and
situations like that seen cannot happen again.”
Five rights organizations in Morocco and APDHA, a human
rights group based in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, also called for
inquiries.
The International Organization for Migration and U.N.
refugee agency UNHCR also weighed in with a statement that expressed “profound
sadness and concern” over what happened at the Morocco-Melilla border.
“IOM and UNHCR urge all authorities to prioritize the safety
of migrants and refugees, refrain from the excessive use of force and uphold
their human rights,” the organizations said.
In a statement published Saturday, the Spanish Commission
for Refugees, CEAR, decried what it described as “the indiscriminate use of
violence to manage migration and control borders" and expressed concerns
that the violence had prevented people who were eligible for international
protection from reaching Spanish soil.
The Catholic Church in the southern Spanish city of Malaga
also expressed its dismay over the events. “Both Morocco and Spain have chosen
to eliminate human dignity on our borders, maintaining that the arrival of
migrants must be avoided at all costs and forgetting the lives that are torn
apart along the way,” it said in a statement penned by a delegation of the
diocese that focuses on migration in Malaga and Melilla.
A spokesperson for the Spanish government’s office in
Melilla said that around 2,000 people had attempted to make it across the
border fence but were stopped by Spanish Civil Guard Police and Moroccan forces
on either side of the border fence. A total 133 migrants made it across the
border.
The mass crossing attempt was the first since Spain and
Morocco mended relations after a year-long dispute related to Western Sahara, a
former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1976. The thaw in relations came
after Spain backed Morocco’s plan to grant more autonomy to the territory, a
reversal of its previous support for a U.N.-backed referendum on the status of
Western Sahara.
– AP/UNB
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