Madrid (EFE).- The case of Abdoú, a Senegalese whose image hugging a Red Cross volunteer went viral, has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights after denouncing that he was illegally returned to Morocco from Spain.
This young man was one of the thousands of migrants who arrived in Ceuta in May 2021, in a massive irregular entry into this Spanish city in North Africa on the border with Morocco.
His image, captured by the EFE Agency, had a notable international impact, while he was assisted by Luna, the Spanish Red Cross volunteer, after arriving exhausted on a beach in Ceuta.
Abdoú was “disappointed” by the court’s decision not to admit the lawsuit filed by the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR), the coordinator of the legal area of this organization, Elena Muñoz, told EFE on Tuesday.
The rejection in this European instance, before which one cannot appeal, closes the door to others such as the United Nations, explained the CEAR lawyer, when the court understood that there was no violation of the European Convention on Human Rights or of a European regulation that they prohibit collective expulsions of migrants, known in Spain as border rejections or hot returns.
The young man was returned to Morocco by the Spanish security forces a few hours after swimming into Ceuta, without having had the help of a lawyer or an interpreter, in which organizations support migrants, entities such as the Ombudsman in Spain and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, have considered a practice that violates rights such as asylum.
The impossibility “in practice” of requesting a visa, even if it exists “on paper”, leads many migrants to try to reach the European Union through other “more complicated” routes, warned Muñoz.
The two autonomous cities, Ceuta and Melilla, are enduring strong migratory pressure as they are the only land borders of the European Union in Africa, with jumps to the border fence like the one that occurred in 2022 in which at least 23 immigrants died.
Although he sees “one more door” closed, this Senegalese maintains his migration project to reach Europe from Morocco, where he has been since he was returned from Spain, the CEAR coordinator asserted.