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MIGRANT CRISIS

Spanish PM: Melilla migrant rush an attack on ‘territorial integrity’

The Prime Minister described a deadly migrant rush in the enclave of Melilla as "an attack on the territorial integrity" of Spain which he blamed on "mafias that traffic in human beings".

Published: 25 June 2022 15:51 CEST
Updated: 25 June 2022 17:14 CEST
Spanish PM: Melilla migrant rush an attack on 'territorial integrity'
A member of the Moroccan security forces on the border fence separating Morocco from Spain's North African Melilla enclave. Photo: Hicham RAFIH/AFP

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Saturday described a deadly migrant rush in the enclave of Melilla bordering Morocco as “an attack on the territorial integrity” of Spain which he blamed on “mafias that traffic in human beings”.

Dramatic scenes on Friday saw some 2,000 migrants storm border fences separating Morocco from the Spanish enclave Melilla, leading to at least 18 deaths, according to the latest Moroccan official toll.

READ ALSO: 18 migrants die in mass attempt to enter Spain’s Melilla

“If anyone is responsible for everything that happened at the border, it is the mafias that traffic in human beings,” he told a press conference.

Melilla, along with fellow Spanish enclave Ceuta, are the European Union’s only two borders with the African continent and both towns have long been magnets for migrants willing to risk their lives to reach the bloc.

Sánchez condemned what he termed “a violent and organised assault organised by mafia who traffic human beings to a town situated on Spanish soil. As a result this is an attack on our territorial integrity.”

He added that “the Moroccan gendarmerie worked in concert with (Spanish) troops and security bodies to push back this so violent assault that we witnessed.”

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MIGRANT CRISIS

Social media instigators of mass migrant crossing to Spain in court

More than 150 people have appeared in a Moroccan court for alleged incitement of illegal migration, a government spokesman said on Thursday, after a failed mass attempt to reach Spain which was promoted on social media.

Published: 20 September 2024 09:13 CEST
Social media instigators of mass migrant crossing to Spain in court

On Sunday, Moroccan police, who fired tear gas, pushed back hundreds of people who headed towards the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, an AFP photographer said, after social media posts encouraged crossing attempts.

“In the framework of the struggle against calls for clandestine immigration, 152 people appeared before a judge,” government spokesman Mustapha Baitas told a press conference.

He said a total of around 3,000 people had tried to illegally enter Ceuta after calls on social media, but all the crossing attempts failed.

READ MORE: Morocco stops would-be migrants trying to reach Spanish exclave

A police source previously told AFP that 60 people were arrested between Monday and Wednesday last week for “fabricating and disseminating false information on social media” that encouraged “the organisation of collective illegal immigration operations”.

Ceuta and its sister territory of Melilla, wedged on the North African kingdom’s Mediterranean coast, have long been a magnet for irregular migrants, being the only European Union territories on the African continent.

Those heading on Sunday towards the village of Fnideq, which abuts Ceuta, included Moroccans and migrants from other parts of Africa, including some minors, the AFP photographer said.

According to official statistic, one in four Moroccan young people aged 15-24 is neither in the job market, nor in education or training.

The Moroccan interior ministry has said that in August alone, authorities blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla.

In June, 2022, at least 23 people died when around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier at Melilla attempting to cross.

The main route out of Morocco for irregular migrants hoping to reach Spain remains by sea.

More than 22,300 migrant arrivals were registered this year by August 15 in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a 126 percent increase from 2023.

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