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A Moroccan human rights group on Saturday slammed the “unjust” punishment of migrants sentenced for a mass attempt to cross the border into the Spanish enclave of Melilla that left at least 23 dead.
On June 24, some 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the border, trying to cross one of the EU’s two land borders with Africa to reach Spanish territory.
Since then, Morocco has sentenced dozens of migrants to up to three years in prison for illegal entry and violence against law enforcement officials.
“These sentences are very harsh and unjust,” Souad Lazreg, a member of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), said Saturday when he filed his report on the immigration trial.
Khalid Ameza, a lawyer who represents some of the immigrants, said the court documents “include confessions that they have denied throughout the legal proceedings. Despite this, they were sentenced to very severe sentences.”
He added that the judgments lacked “logical and convincing arguments” to support them.
In a speech livestreamed on Facebook, Ameza said “law enforcement officers questioned did not identify” any specific individuals in cases where some migrants were accused of committing violence against security forces or vandalizing public property.
The death toll is the worst in years for such attempted border crossings.
Moroccan authorities put the death toll at 23, while AMDH gave a figure of 27.
At least 37 people were killed, according to human rights group Amnesty International and independent experts.
Melilla and its sister enclave of Ceuta have long attracted those looking to escape extreme poverty and hunger.
The governments of Morocco and Spain have both insisted that the migrants were responsible for the tragedy, with Rabat saying some fell and died trying to climb over fences, while others suffocated as people panicked and stampeded.
Spanish prosecutors concluded their investigation into the deaths on Friday, saying investigators had found no evidence of criminal activity by Spanish security forces.
Kao/ami/lg
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