For, the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, “the decision to violently attack asylum seekers” is the “main cause” of the drama that occurred at the end of June.
Le Monde with AFP
A Moroccan NGO attributed to Rabat and Madrid on Wednesday, July 20, the responsibility of the drama having taken place in Melilla at the end of June, when 27 African migrants died, according to her, trying to force the passage of this Spanish enclave in northern Morocco.
“The tragedy of June 24 cost the life of 27 migrants because of an unprecedented repression of the Moroccan authorities with the complicity of their Spanish counterparts”, denounced Omar Naji, of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights ( AMDH), at a press conference in Rabat. According to Moroccan authorities, 23 migrants in an irregular situation perished following jostles and falls during the attempt to go massive in Melilla.
“This is an ignoble crime, the result of deadly migratory policies”, denounced Mr. Naji, who presented a report from the AMDH on the drama, stressing that the assessment of the association “rests on trustworthy sources “. “The decision to violently attack the asylum seekers once arrived at the barrier [separating the Moroccan and Spanish territories] is undoubtedly the main cause behind the very heavy assessment,” it is written in the report.
Main Independent Association for Defense of Human Rights in Morocco, the NGO castigates “the massive use of tear gas” by Moroccan and Spanish police when migrants, mostly Sudanese, were trying to enter a post -Amant and closed tuning or climbing a metal fence surmounted by barbed wire. The Spanish authorities “have repressed hot a hundred migrants”, according to the AMDH, which reports 64 illegals still missing.
Rating operations
In a preliminary report, the National Council for Human Rights (CNDH), an official Moroccan organization responsible for investigating the drama, concluded that migrants’ “mechanical asphyxiation”, mainly at the level of Tampon area of the border post, equipped with manual turnstiles allowing the passage of one person at a time. His investigation has put the Moroccan police forces out of the case and pointed out the responsibility of the Spanish authorities, who maintained the border post.
For the AMDH, the resumption of migratory cooperation between Rabat and Madrid, prize for reconciliation sealed on March 18 after a year of diplomatic mulch, is an accused. It gave rise to an “increase” of Moroccan rating operations in the neighboring forests of Melilla: more than 30 between April and June 2022, against 37 for the whole year 2021.
If Madrid and Rabat have denounced the involvement of “criminal trafficking networks” in the drama of June 24, the AMDH rejects this “new criminalization speech” of migrants. When the latter try a terrestrial crossing by climbing barbed wire fences, they “do it without paying anything, unlike those who try it by sea”, argues Mr. Naji.
Tuesday, 33 migrants arrested after Melilla’s drama were sentenced to Nador to eleven months in prison each for “illegal entry” in Morocco; 29 others are prosecuted before Moroccan justice. This migratory drama is the deadliest ever occurred during the many migrant attempts to enter Melilla and the Spanish enclave close to Ceuta, the two main land borders of the European Union with the African continent.