Moroccan and Spanish security forces used “unlawful force” and failed to provide sufficient medical assistance after migrants stormed the border fence between Morocco and Spain’s north-African enclave of Melilla in June, according to an Amnesty International report published Tuesday.
In a press conference held in Madrid, representatives of Amnesty International’s Spanish branch presented its report on the incident based on interviews with survivors, witnesses, officials and healthcare workers, as well as images and evidence gathered until October.
The report, like others before it, contests the official version of events, saying that at least 37 sub-Saharan Africans, rather than the officially reported 23, died that day – though the number could be even far higher and amount to 77.
On those who were wounded in the incident, the report also points to the many more who were wounded, compared to official reports, and that authorities did not provide enough medical assistance to the wounded.
At the press conference, Esteban Beltrán, the director of Amnesty International-Spain, also criticised the Spanish government as it “seems to have tried to cover up the facts”. It has not yet initiated an own-initiative inquiry, collaborates “reluctantly” with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, “has exonerated” the security forces, and lied, he added.
The report also denounces the “widespread use of unlawful force by Moroccan and Spanish security forces”, even after migrants were in police hands.
Officers from both sides also repeatedly used truncheons, rubber bullets and tear gas, as well as hitting and kicking people who were already immobilised “in an enclosed space from which they had no way of escaping” as they prioritised removing dead bodies rather than attending to the wounded, the report adds.
Along with this “unlawful” use of force, neither the Moroccan nor the Spanish police guaranteed emergency medical attention to the wounded, who were left “in the sun for eight hours without being given basic first aid”, the organisation added.
Morocco “prioritised” the transfer of corpses, and its medical staff did not help the wounded until almost two hours after the jump was suppressed, while the Spanish police did not allow the Red Cross access either during or after the attempt to enter, the text reads.
“The Spanish authorities failed to assist in any way the injured persons who remained on the ground on Spanish territory after the police operation ended, thereby violating their rights in multiple ways, including their right to prompt and adequate medical attention and to be free from torture and other ill-treatment.”
On 30 November, the Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska faced lawmakers in parliament, insisting that the country’s security forces were not responsible for the tragedy, that no one died on Spanish soil and that migrants acted with “violence”.
“The events took place mainly in Moroccan territory,” he insisted at the time, referring to them as “events in Nador”, which is Morocco’s border city and not in Spain’s Melilla.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)
Source: euractiv.com
