Spain and Morocco are yet to take responsibility for dozens of deaths and disappearances of African migrants following their attempted crossing into the Spanish enclave of Melilla in June, Amnesty International said Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2022) Spain and Morocco are yet to take responsibility for dozens of deaths and disappearances of African migrants following their attempted crossing into the Spanish enclave of Melilla in June, Amnesty International said Tuesday.
Six months after the deadly clashes, Moroccan and Spanish authorities have no findings to share as the rights group continues to press the two governments to ensure justice for at least 37 sub-Saharan Africans who died on the border of Melilla on June 24. Some 77 others are still unaccounted for.
"This smacks of a cover-up and racism, and rubs salt into already painful wounds. It is essential for both governments to ensure truth and justice for what happened that day in order to prevent it from happening again," Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard said.
The autonomous Spanish city in northern Africa is seen as a springboard to Europe by Africans fleeing war and poverty at home. Amnesty said the latest clash between migrants and border guards on both sides of the Spanish-Moroccan border was predictable and the loss of life avoidable.
Days before the attempted crossing, Moroccan security forces began destroying the possessions of thousands of people who had been amassing at the border for months, prompting them to start walking to the only border crossing. Witnesses told Amnesty that hundreds had been cornered in a small walled area before border guards started pelting them with stones and firing tear gas at them.
"There is a growing mountain of evidence of serious and multiple human rights violations, including the unlawful death and ill-treatment of refugees and migrants and to this day the lack of information as to the identity of the deceased and the fate of the missing," Callamard said.
Amnesty said it had shared a summary of its findings with both governments in November but they never responded. Neither government has released preliminary results of any investigations or CCTV footage from any of the many cameras along the border, nor have they announced that they are probing the use of force by border staff.
