The Moroccan Association for Human Rights, which raises the number of dead sub-Saharans to 27, publishes a video in which the police of the neighboring country beat wounded irregulars | Sánchez insists on defending the action of the Gendarmerie in this episode and blames the mafias
The trigger for what is already the greatest tragedy in the history of the Melilla fence and which has claimed the lives of at least 18 immigrants was a pitched battle that lasted more than half an hour and in which Morocco used harshness and a number of media never seen before, according to Spanish police sources and confirmed by various officials of human rights organizations on the other side of the border.
After 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning, the altercations between the 2,000 sub-Saharans and the more than 500 gendarmes, police and military deployed by the authorities of the neighboring country unleashed a human avalanche in a valley near the fence of the autonomous city, where a group of Sub-Saharan Africans, helped by a radio and armed with hooks and sticks, had become strong enough to try to break down a door.
The horror and deaths planned by governments on the southern border cannot leave anyone indifferent. https://t.co/CSqx21pMlx
✳️ RegularizacionYa Official Account (@RegularizacionY) June 25, 2022
In an attempt to break up the crowd that gathered to enter through this gap and other weak points in the Chinatown area, the most vulnerable on the perimeter, the Moroccan forces went to great lengths. They responded to the violence of the sub-Saharans, returning the stones and throwing all kinds of objects at them, in addition to using tear gas.
When the area was finally cleared, the bodies of dozens of immigrants were left on the ground, according to eyewitnesses consulted by this newspaper. “Some were dead, others dying, others badly injured,” a well-known human rights activist from neighboring Nador points out on the phone. For hours these people did not receive any help, also denounced by the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) and confirmed by various officials of the Spanish security forces, that at no time did they receive any request for help from the other side of the fence. The numerous videos distributed by the NGOs corroborate this version: none of the images shows medical personnel or an attempt by Moroccan soldiers to evacuate the people who were lying inert.
What can be seen in one of the recordings distributed in recent hours by AMDH is that Moroccan officials, in addition to not assisting the wounded after the avalanche, mistreated the badly injured immigrants who, at least at that time, were defenseless. There are blows with batons, shoves and kicks by the agents of the neighboring country.
From the AMDH they insisted this Saturday morning that those who died on Friday in the Chinatown jump were 27 immigrants and not 18 as the provincial authorities maintain. Rabat also denies that the riots left two more dead on the side of the Moroccan security forces , as maintained by the AMDH.
“Violent and Organized”
The leaking of the recordings on the actions of the Moroccan forces and the confirmation of at least 18 deaths did not make the President of the Government change his words of recognition to Rabat on Friday one iota, before knowing the magnitude of the human tragedy , when he congratulated himself that the agents on the other side of the fence had “worked hard” to avoid the jump. Pedro Sánchez this Saturday again defended the actions of the gendarmerie and blamed everything on the mafias.
“It was a violent attack on the territorial integrity of the country.” And, in this sense, he insisted that the Moroccan gendarmerie “worked in coordination with the forces and bodies of the State to repel this violent assault organized by the mafias that traffic in human beings.” “If there is one person responsible for everything that seems to have happened on the border, it is the mafias that traffic in human beings,” he reiterated.
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