PUSL.- Death on the border a BBC documentary which shows how Morocco uses migration as a weapon of blackmail on Europe with the complicity of Spain.
In June 2022 Morocco allowed thousands of sub-Saharan migrants to approach the border zone with Mellila the Spanish enclave. After arriving in the zone they were massacred by the Moroccan authorities which resulted in 24 confirmed deaths and dozens of “disappeared” people. In this documentary we can see not only how the whole massacre was premeditated but how it was supported by the Spanish authorities who did nothing to protect the migrants who managed to reach Spanish soil and were captured and taken back by the Moroccan authorities.
500 000 000 euros was the reward that Morocco received for the slaughter from the European Union.
The blackmail used by Morocco which uses migrants as a weapon and as disposable beings is nothing new and is used not only to collect millions but to maintain the status quo of the illegal occupation of Western Sahara.
What we see in these images, the violence exercised on the migrants is the same violence that the Saharawis suffer in the occupied territories of Western Sahara but where the media has no access.
Link to BBC documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJoL7E4uvuU
Ombudsman counts 470 returns in Melilla during the tragedy of 24 June
elsaltodiario.com.- Gabilondo’s office believes that the Interior did not give an accurate figure for the number of people returned to Morocco during the mass influx of migrants from Melilla last June. At least 23 people died as a result of these returns at the border.
The Ombudsman’s office, headed by Ángel Gabilondo, has today issued a press release correcting the Guardia Civil’s figures on the number of people who were returned in contravention of international law at the Melilla fence on 24 June. On that day, when 23 people died according to Spanish governmental bodies and between 37 and 72 according to NGOs on the ground, the authorities returned 470 people “in the heat of the moment” to Morocco, according to the Ombudsman, who puts the figure above the 101 returns recognised by the Guardia Civil.
The Ombudsman began his actions on 28 June after receiving complaints and requests from representatives of nine associations. Although the investigation has not been completed, this office has assessed the use of this type of mechanism – which the Ministry of the Interior calls border rejections – and that these were carried out “without taking into account both national and international legal provisions”, in reference to the lack of individualised processes required by law to carry out this type of return. The Interior Ministry has responded to the note from the office headed by Gabilondo by maintaining that the “rejections” were carried out in compliance with the law.
In addition, the Ombudsman’s office has requested more images from the Ministry headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska in order to “clarify some aspects” of what happened in June.
The Interior has shown its full support for the actions of the Civil Guard, of which the Ombudsman has called for the eradication of “any abusive, arbitrary or discriminatory practice involving physical or moral violence by the State Security Forces and Corps, in the exercise of their professional duties”.
The institution led by Gabilondo requires that, in order to avoid a repetition of tragedies like that one, “a rights-based approach to border management must be applied in order to guarantee the right to physical and moral integrity, without anyone being subjected to ill-treatment, inhuman or degrading treatment”.
The future opinion of the Ombudsman is not limiting for a criminal investigation to be carried out into the events that took place in Melilla, as the institution itself refers, recalling that “the allegedly criminal conduct or facts are already being analysed by the competent institution”, in relation to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
