On Friday, about 2,000 people tried crossing the border fence between #Morocco and the Spain at the #Melilla border. There were 37 deaths reported with 76 people were injured. Moroccan forces beat many people while others died in a stampede. Videos and pictures emerged showing many people lying on the ground, motionless, near the border fence as the Moroccan security forces watched.
The Moroccan forces buried people without identifying them or doing autopsies to ascertain the cause of death. "Without investigation, without autopsy and without identification, the authorities seek to hide the disaster. A true disaster," the AMDH said.
"The Moroccan police beat us and killed our friends and I don't understand why," Amir, a young man from Sudan who reached Melilla, told elDiario.es news site (BBC).
"The victims of the tragedy in Melilla agonized for hours under the cruel gaze of those who were supposed to help them and did not do so," tweeted Maleno Garzon of Walking Borders, a rights group for asylum seekers and refugees.
#EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson called the events "deeply troubling. Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the African Union, in a tweet, said that all countries have "obligations under international law to treat all migrants with dignity and to prioritize their safety and human rights while refraining from the use of excessive force."
Meanwhile, #Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has applauded Spanish and Moroccan collaboration on the border, saying the mass migration attempt was "well resolved." He called this incident a "violent assault" on the Melilla border fence. He said the ‘assault’ was the work of "mafias who traffic in human beings."
Rethinking Refugees stand in solidarity with the refugees who lost their lives due to institutional brutality, when all they need is a #safepassage and a #home. Let us #rethinkrefugees to extinguish the biases we hold & #cometogether to #help people.
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