Migrants climb the fences separating the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco in Melilla, Spain
NADOR (Morocco), June 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The death toll from a bid by African migrants to force their way into the Spanish enclave of Melilla, northern Morocco, has risen to 23, Moroccan officials said.
Officials initially said that five people had died in the rush when around 2,000 mostly sub-Saharan African migrants approached the Moroccan border with the tiny territory at dawn on Friday, but the toll rose to 18 on Friday and
five more have since also died of their injuries.
Earlier in the day, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the Melilla migrant rush as an attack on Spain’s “territorial integrity”.
Meanwhile, human activists demanded an investigation into the matter. As per Melilla authorities, at least 500 people managed to enter the border control area after cutting a fence.
Sanchez told reporters that the mafias that traffic in human beings were responsible for the incident. Images of injured migrants lying on the pavement in Melilla surfaced online.
It was the first such incident since Spain and Morocco ended a year-long diplomatic crisis in April this year after the Spanish Prime Minister’s visit to Rabat. Spain backed Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara region.
The dispute erupted between the two countries when Spain allowed leader of Western Sahara’s pro-independence Polisario Front Brahim Ghali to get treated for COVID-19 in a Spanish hospital in April last year.
Almost a month later, around 10,000 migrants surged across the Moroccan border into Spain’s Ceuta enclave. Madrid considered it a punitive gesture by Rabat.
Notably, Spain’s two tiny North African enclaves, Melilla and Ceuta, have the EU’s only land borders with Africa. — NNN-AGENCIES
