The Ombudsman has questioned some of the explanations given by the Ministry of the Interior about the action carried out on June 24, when hundreds of people tried to enter Spain from Morocco by forcing their way into the Barrio Chino border post , in Melilla. in a resolution which can be found on their website, the institution questions several affirmations of the version of the Secretary of State for Security (SES); from the coordination with the Moroccan agents, which is now denied, to the official claim that the agents were not aware of the risk to the migrants. It also affects the lack of legal procedure to execute the returns, which were carried out with the help of Moroccan agents, and points out that the throwing of gas and stones by the Spanish guards could “intensify the dangerous situation.”
The Ombudsman’s brief, published last week, is dated October 14 and includes the preliminary conclusions that the institution drew after seeing the images and analyzing the first official response that was sent to it on September 20. The Ombudsman had already reported in a press release on this first analysis, but the detailed content of the documents exchanged between the institution and the SES, which depends on the Ministry of the Interior, was not known.
The Ombudsman’s resolution now reveals that, according to the Secretary of State, the operation deployed in Melilla was not coordinated with the Moroccan State security forces and bodies. Both countries, maintains the SES, carried out their actions “in an autonomous manner”, producing collaboration “only in the final phase of the events [en referencia al momento en el que agentes de ambos países comenzaron a ejecutar devoluciones]”. Interior defends that maintaining “a flow of information with the Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie does not allow assuming that coordinated actions are carried out in the entry control.”
With this response, Interior dissociates itself from the actions of the Moroccan gendarmes and auxiliary forces during that day. On June 24, some 1,700 people, most of them Sudanese refugees, tried to force their way through the Chinatown border post. The entire group did not arrive at the site, but several hundred people did, who, for more than 30 minutes, tried to force the entrance doors while stones and tear gas were flying from both sides of the border. When the doors opened, it was a funnel and dozens of people were crowded both on the side of the post that is under Spanish control and on the Moroccan side. After the avalanche, the Moroccan guards beat the victims and left them lying on the ground in a patio for hours, in full sun and without medical assistance. At least 23 people died, but there are about 70 missing.
The defender Ángel Gabilondo considers that the statement that there was no coordinated operation contrasts with another response from the same Secretary of State when referring to a jump to the previous fence, in March. “On that occasion [en la que España y Marruecos aún no habían recuperado sus relaciones], there is talk of the action of Spanish-Moroccan forces when describing the operation”. In that jump in March, more than 800 people entered Melilla, compared to the 133 who did so in June. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, himself stated on June 25, one day after the tragedy, that the Moroccan gendarmerie “worked in coordination with the forces and bodies of the State to repel such a violent assault.”
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In any case, dictates the institution, “a closer coordination in action, in incidents such as the one at hand, in which dangerous crowds occur in areas very close to the fence, could prevent tragedies like the one that occurred in this case”.
Fragments of the videos recorded on June 24, to which EL PAÍS has had access, show that the migrants trapped in the avalanche also fell on the Spanish side.
The cameras recorded the dangerous situation
The Secretary of State for Security, led by Rafael Pérez, also assures that the police forces “were not aware of, nor did they observe directly, nor through the border perimeter, the risk situation to which these people were exposed.” This issue is important because it remains to be clarified whether the Spanish authorities were able to do anything to prevent the tragedy.
The SES affirms that when the Civil Guard manages to gain access to the interior of the Barrio Chino border post, [una vez ocurrida la avalancha mortal]”no injured or deceased persons were found, because at that time, the Moroccan security forces had managed to neutralize the attempted entry by force, as well as clearing the access road to the facilities on the Spanish side.”
The Ombudsman again disagrees with the official interpretation: “After viewing the images, especially those captured by the helicopter, these statements cannot be shared by this institution. In fact, it is observed how an indeterminate number of people are piled up and, in several cases, crushed in one of the accesses”.
The description made by the institution of the videos to refute Interior is very similar to the reconstruction made by EL PAÍS after seeing the videos of the avalanche, which occurred at 8:42. In the images captured by the Civil Guard helicopter, the institution details, the Moroccan agents begin to access the interior of the border post, people crowd at the other end of the access. “There is an avalanche. They force one of the doors, but there are already many people crowded together: they try to free each other. Canisters of smoke continue to be launched. They step on each other. The Moroccan agents are already at their height at the border post.”
For the Ombudsman, the images captured by the drone and the fence camera also reveal “the dangerous situation that developed” and about which the agents who participated in the operation “should have had constant information.” The institution maintains that “it is not plausible that there was no knowledge of the risk situation” and defends that “the throwing of stones by both parties and the fact that some Spanish agents sprayed them with a spray could intensify the dangerous situation ”. In his description of the images, the Ombudsman details how some Spanish agents “look for stones and throw them at people who are on top of the fence” and how a Civil Guard agent sprays migrants with gas “to that they do not continue trying to break down the door of the post”.
Once part of the group manages to leave the border post and concentrates under the Melilla fence, continues the Defender, it is observed how there are two bodies on the road, without the images showing that they receive health care. “No information has been provided regarding the moment in which the intervention of the health services or the Red Cross was requested,” the letter collects. The institution describes what the helicopter captures at 9:14 a.m., the moment in which the Civil Guard tries to prevent several hundred people from passing the police cordon: “An ambulance is observed on the road, stopped at a certain distance from the Guard vehicles. Civil. The video ends at 9.15, the ambulance does not intervene at any time. In the images captured by the drone, the intervention of the ambulance is not observed either.” Interior has defended that the vehicle did not approach for security reasons.
hot returns
The Defender also refers to the 470 people who were returned to Morocco. Here the institution makes it clear that it was the Secretary of State itself that reported that number, despite the fact that the Interior has repeatedly denied it. In that same letter, the SES raises to 134 (and not 133) the number of people who managed to stay in Spain. The SES denies any “summary return”, as it is not an authorized legal proceeding.
The Ombudsman disagrees again and proceeds to describe the videos that record the moment in which the returns begin to take place: “At 8:58 a.m., it is observed that there are a large number of people on the embankment located next to the fence of the gate and that arrests occur. Just two minutes later, at 9:00 a.m., expeditious deliveries are seen through the fence. The lapse of time, two minutes, makes it impossible to maintain that rejections have been made at the border in accordance with the minimum legal requirements.” In its resolution, the institution expresses its suspicions that among those returned there were minors and people in need of international protection.
Part of these returns were made thanks to the fact that Moroccan agents entered Melilla to take the migrants, an extreme that Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska denied. despite the fact that it was recorded in videos published by the newspaper Public.
The Secretary of State for Security sent a new letter last Thursday that the Ombudsman is still analyzing. Although it is a common procedure, the department of Grande-Marlaska has shown its discomfort at the publication of this resolution: “The Ministry of the Interior expresses its surprise at the fact that a document prior to the meticulous and detailed allegations made is now being disseminated last week by the department, and with which extremes are demonstrated such as that the Ombudsman did have all the available images of the events from the beginning, that all the rejections at the border were carried out in accordance with current legislation or that the Civil Guard At no time did he omit the duty of assistance. The fact of disseminating a document that neither includes nor takes into account any of the detailed explanations and allegations made by the Interior generates a clear situation of defenselessness.
Grande-Marlaska asks to wait to appear in the European Parliament
The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and the Interior (LIBE) of the European Parliament will debate this Thursday on the incidents of June 24 without the presence of the Minister of the Interior. The European Parliament had requested his appearance in July to explain the government’s actions in the tragedy, although the invitation did not oblige Grande-Marlaska to attend. In a letter addressed to the president of the commission, the socialist Juan Fernando López Aguilar, and to which EL PAÍS has had access, the minister asks to “wait” for the end of the two investigations opened by the Ombudsman and the Prosecutor’s Office, whose conclusions, he argues , may be “of interest to all”. The anti-capitalist MEP Miguel Urbán, one of those who promoted the petition in July, has criticized the decision: “It is totally inappropriate and unusual for Marlaska not to go to Parliament”, he has questioned in a press release in which he also calls for his resignation, reports Paula Chouza.
Refugees without refuge: impossible to reach the asylum office
One of the Ombudsman’s recommendations after the events of June 24 in Melilla is that Spain guarantee that refugees can request asylum at the border or in consulates and embassies. Spain has defended before the Court of Human Rights, which judged the forced returns, that there are several options to enter Spain as a refugee, so a jump over the fence would not be justified.
The Ombudsman, however, confirms the impossibility of access to the border post of Beni Enzar (Melilla), where the asylum office is, for anyone who is not Moroccan. The institution also points out the impossibility for third-country nationals to apply for international protection in the diplomatic representations of Spain in Morocco, a procedure that includes the Spanish asylum law.
In the case of Morocco, the Ombudsman is particularly concerned about “the high number of people, presumably in need of international protection, who are forced to put their lives at risk” in order to seek asylum in Spain, instead of availing themselves of the possibilities provided by law.
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