AMDH-Nador places at least 27 dead on the Melilla border and denounces “excessive use” of violence

July 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) in the Moroccan city of Nador has insisted this Wednesday on putting at least 27 dead in the attempted jump over the Melilla fence on June 24, where according to the official balance they lost the life 23 people.

The NGO has held a press conference where it has added that even today, almost a month after what happened, there are still at least 64 missing people. The number of injured amounts to more than 110 between migrants and agents of the Moroccan authorities.

Likewise, AMDH-Nador has criticized that the Moroccan authorities even dug mass graves for the deceased, although the voice of alert given by the same organization, which even published photographs of the excavations, finally stopped this process.

On the other hand, representatives of the organization have denounced the intervention of Moroccan security agents, who surrounded the migrants, preventing them from going back and returning to their camps.

In this sense, AMDH-Nador has warned about the “excessive use of tear gas” by both the Moroccan and Spanish authorities, something that, added to the siege that was made of the migrants, they consider influenced the tragic outcome of the episode.

In its criticism of the intervention of the Moroccan security forces, the NGO has also alluded to those of Spain to take steps aimed at clarifying what happened, thus fulfilling its position of transparency in this regard.

“The Melilla authorities, if they say they are transparent, must reveal the data from the surveillance cameras and the helicopter that flew over the area,” they have transferred from the organization.

Finally, AMDH-Nador has ruled out that the assault on the fence was sponsored by a human trafficking network, since they consider that they focus their business by sea, an alternative fueled especially since the fence was reinforced in 2017.

“The reorientation of the migration of sub-Saharans towards the sea, controlled by the networks of traffickers (…) was only a consequence of the European and Moroccan migratory policies that, by making the barrier almost insurmountable, have favored above all the establishment of a migratory market under the control of the trafficking networks”, concluded the NGO.

Already last week, the National Human Rights Council (CNDH), a commission dependent on the Government of Morocco, questioned the role of the Spanish authorities after the massive attempt by more than 2,000 sub-Saharans to cross the Melilla fence

The CNDH indicated that the acts of violence took place due to the inaction of the Spanish authorities “despite the pushing and shoving of migrants in front of the doors that remained hermetically closed” and whose “most likely” consequence was to “increase the number of dead and wounded.