A Sudanese took the Spanish Interior Minister at his word. The minister had urged African migrants not to risk their lives at sea or at a border fence. Instead, they were told to seek international protection at a Spanish consulate. He was the first and only one to succeed: the 25-year-old Christian from South Kordofan made it to the door of the Spanish Embassy in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, and requested asylum.
For a year and a half, he and his two Spanish lawyers fought until he was finally allowed to land in Madrid. “A victory for all refugees that seemed impossible at first,” the Sudanese man said upon his arrival in May. He, who has been on the run for over ten years, has made a chapter of Spanish legal history with his persistence—and experienced it firsthand: legally reaching Spain from North Africa is practically impossible for those seeking protection from Africa.
On June 24, 2022, he had briefly set foot on Spanish soil. He was among the approximately 2,000 African migrants—most from Sudan—who attempted to scale the border fence that separates the Spanish Mediterranean enclave of Melilla from Moroccan territory. However, Spain is still struggling to come to terms with the deadly incident at the border fence of its North African enclave. The barrier there became a deadly trap. At least 23 migrants lost their lives, and hundreds were injured. To this day, around seventy people are missing. Moroccan and Spanish security forces violently prevented the migrants from crossing to the Spanish side, where they would have continued into the EU. According to human rights researchers, the death toll was much higher; some therefore refer to it as the “Massacre of Melilla.” A new investigation by the independent organization Border Forensics raises serious allegations against the border police of both countries: they are accused of excessive violence against those seeking protection. The organization accuses the Moroccan security authorities of, among other things, driving the migrants out of the forests in the Moroccan hinterland. As a result, they moved to Mount Gourougou, located about 15 kilometers from the border crossing. On June 23, the day before the deadly incident, security forces also drove them from Gourougou, prompting the migrants to head towards Melilla.
According to Border Forensics, both Morocco and Spain had stationed security forces around the border post two hours before the rush on the border fence; however, the Moroccan authorities did not stop the rush. This led to the deadly “trap” at the border crossing: when the migrants advanced into an enclosed courtyard of the border post—which, although under Moroccan control, is mostly on Spanish territory—Moroccan and Spanish security forces used tear gas against them, among other measures.
This triggered a mass panic, as people could not leave the courtyard, and “certainly led to the first deaths in this massacre,” the organization stated. The investigation also reveals that Spanish Guardia Civil officers must have witnessed the violence by Moroccan security forces, as Border Forensics demonstrates through video footage, a 3D reconstruction of the border crossing, and testimonies, including from Guardia Civil personnel.
However, the report did not impress either Rabat or Madrid. At the end of June, the Moroccan Public Prosecutor’s Office closed its investigation. The investigations had shown that the police action was intended to “maintain order with a proportionate use of force, despite the aggressive and violent nature of the migrants, their large numbers, and their armament with sharp weapons,” according to the decision reported by the press. In Spain, the investigations were already closed at the end of 2022: the border police had acted “proportionately and legally” in the face of a brutal onslaught, according to Spanish authorities. The Spanish Interior Ministry also had nothing to add after the new investigation: the Guardia Civil acted with “absolute respect for human rights,” and the deaths only occurred on Moroccan territory.
The report by Border Forensics is not the first investigation to question the official inquiry. A BBC documentary in 2022 showed video footage from the day of the incident, displaying lifeless bodies on the Spanish side of the fence. According to the Spanish police, people died in the “no man’s land” within the border facilities during the mass panic. The film also shows Moroccan officers bringing migrants back from Spain to Morocco at the fence. An African man interviewed by the BBC said that Moroccan police beat him for hours until he lost consciousness. At the end of 2022, the Spanish Parliament’s Ombudsman contradicted the investigations by the Prosecutor’s Office and the account of the Spanish Interior Ministry. In his report, he found that Moroccan police entered Spanish territory and that Spanish officers handed over intercepted individuals to them. But in Madrid, there seems to be no interest in revisiting Melilla and its aftermath.
All publishing rights and copyrights reserved to MENA Research Center.
