AMDH-Nador fears that the final death toll on the Melilla border is “much higher” than 27

June 26 () –

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) in the Moroccan city of Nador has warned that the number of bodies accumulated in the Nador mortuary is “much higher” than the 27 that the organization itself has been able to confirm.

“Since last night, access to the Hassani Hospital in Nador has been prohibited for journalists and the surroundings of the morgue are controlled by police and members of the auxiliary forces day and night,” AMDH-Nador warned in a statement posted on Facebook.

When asked, they have been explained that only the hospital management, the provincial authorities and the Police can give exact figures of deaths.

“The most important thing is that so far no autopsies have been carried out on the bodies of the dead migrants. This means that the order to open an investigation has not yet been issued,” said AMDH-Nador.

At least 27 people according to NGOs, 23 according to sources from the authorities cited by the official Moroccan press, died due to the intervention of the Moroccan security forces during the attempt of more than 2,000 sub-Saharans to cross the Melilla fence last Friday.

More than a hundred people were injured, including dozens of police officers, although only 18 migrants and one police officer were hospitalized on Sunday, admitted to the Hassani Hospital and the Oujda University Hospital.

After the clashes, Moroccan security forces handcuffed and piled immobilized migrants on the ground in the streets of Chinatown in the city of Nador, images that have gone around the world.

AMDH-Nador denounced this Saturday that in the Nador Hospital there are at least 15 corpses of migrants “lying on the ground and smelling”. “Only two employees work there in very difficult conditions. The furniture and the floor are stained with the blood of migrants. The mortuary is full,” the organization said on Twitter.

Several NGOs that help migrants have already demanded an investigation of what happened from the Spanish and Moroccan authorities. In the same way, they demand legal and safe ways for people who seek to migrate from their countries and reach Europe and ask that those who did manage to cross the border in the autonomous city “not be returned”.