report
A year ago, almost 2,000 migrants tried to scale the meter-high fences in Melilla. There were dead and injured on the border between the Spanish exclave and Morocco.
Melilla in June 2023. It’s quiet on the border with Morocco. The wind whistles. The security zone is deserted. Freelance journalist Javier García Angosto is standing on the hill from which he observed the incident a year ago that later made headlines as the “Melilla Tragedy.”
It’s a mix of olive grove and wild dump, overlooking the border and the deep blue Mediterranean Sea. He points to fences several meters high on the Moroccan side, between them deep ditches. “If you fall into the ditch,” he explains, “you fall down more than two meters.” This border system is insurmountable. A year ago, Angosto filmed dramatic scenes on this hill. He has them on his cell phone.
The injured endured untreated on the Spanish side
Moroccan police officers throwing large stones at migrants from above, man trying to dodge the stones. A larger group, at least 200 people, have made it onto Spanish soil and are being brought back to Morocco one by one. “Look at this boy,” says García Angosto, visibly moved by the images, “how he runs.”
The boy tried to find shelter in the olive trees. Vain. The recordings show how the injured endure untreated on the Spanish side, although a Red Cross ambulance is quickly on site.
One by one they are taken back to Morocco
Moroccan officials on Spanish soil can be seen waiting for a migrant hit by a rock to fall and then grab him, the journalist explains. And again and again repatriations – that worried him at the time. Also because it seemed as if human rights were irrelevant.
He saw them being taken back to Morocco one by one without identifying them or asking where they came from. That worried him, because at that moment it was not clear what was happening to these people on the other side. It is now clear that many are in prison, and there is still no trace of others. Still others remain in the surrounding woods and wait.
On the border with the Spanish exclave, in the Gourougou forests around the Moroccan town of Nador, hundreds of migrants usually wait here for their chance to cross the Melilla border fence. Old mattresses, clothing, large water canisters and old bandages are still lying around here. A year after the Melilla tragedy, things are quiet in Nador.
Moussa says there are no longer many migrants and asylum seekers here, either in the woods or in the city. He is in his early 30s, from Guinea, works in the kitchen of a restaurant, washing plates, cups and cutlery. Although he has asylum papers, it is not easy for black people in Nador. “Everything is restricted. You can’t even just go out. You can only do that at night,” he says. “You have to wait until 8 or 9 p.m. You also have to hide from the police to buy groceries. Otherwise they’ll arrest you or take you away.”
Staying is not an option
Moussa has a wife and a young daughter. She will be three in the fall. Because the situation in northern Morocco is so difficult for black migrants and asylum seekers, he sent them away. 4500 euros and a speedboat were the way out, he says. Now the two are in Spain and are being cared for by aid organizations.
Moussa thinks about what to do now. He himself lived in the woods for two years, and a suspected smuggler made off with his money. In Nador he was arrested himself with asylum papers. Staying is not an option for him. “Even if you want to buy groceries, if something actually costs one dirham, they will sell it to you for two dirhams. You have to pay a lot more if you’re black.”
A catastrophe for human rights
Anyone who still lives near the border as a migrant or asylum seeker usually also knows Ousmane Ba. He comes from Senegal and has been living in Morocco for more than a decade. He lived in the forests of Gourougou for eleven years. He tried ten times to come to Europe – without success.
Ousmane Ba talks about food from the garbage, bread contaminated with urine, which made him ill. Today he has a residence permit, works on the subject of migration, has his own non-governmental organization in Morocco for migrants from sub-Saharan countries, is invited to conferences worldwide – his two children speak Moroccan dialect fluently and go to school.
“The EU will say – the work is being done well in Nador: Nobody is in the forests anymore. This is a catastrophe for human rights.” According to Ousmane Ba, the few who stayed have become much more vulnerable, having to hide during the day in forests and tunnels.
You can’t move freely like before with the taxis because it’s forbidden. The Moroccans who used to sell fish or water in the forests, even the aid organizations no longer have access to the forests, all of that no longer exists.
Deaths not properly processed to this day
M’barek Bouirig also observes that the situation for asylum seekers has deteriorated. The lawyer has represented the mostly Sudanese asylum-seekers who tried to climb the border fence in Melilla a year ago – many of whom are now serving three-year prison sentences. “With all due respect to the court, we do not agree with the verdicts. We consider the Sudanese who came to Morocco to be refugees by law because they fled the war. The court of first instance took that into account and imposed penalties of eleven and eight months. In the second instance, however, the sentences were increased to three years for everyone.”
For a year there have been complaints that the circumstances surrounding the deaths in Melilla are not being properly dealt with – neither by the Spanish nor by the Moroccan side. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International complain that a year after the Melilla tragedy, people are still lying in morgues in Morocco – not yet identified or buried by their families.
Tow tractors develop something new business model
According to data from the European border agency Frontex, there have been fewer attempts to reach Europe from Moroccan territory in recent months. The Canary Islands, for example. Or the mainland. Fewer refugees also attempted it via Turkey. But significantly more from Tunisia.
One reason for this, explains Piotr Świtalski from Frontex: smugglers have developed a new business model there. They are now building cheap boats, he says, that would be ready on beaches in 24 hours. These boats could take 20 to 30 people on board. But they are not seaworthy.
But now, in summer, more people would set off on other routes as well. Like this week towards the Canary Islands. More than 300 refugees have been rescued, but there are also many missing.