Maria Perez I
Málaga, (EFE).- The director of Amnesty International Spain, Esteban Beltrán, assures that the Spanish government “will be marked by the Melilla massacre”, one year after the death of at least 23 people – the entity raises the figure to 37- in an attempt to jump the border fence with Morocco.
On June 24 of last year, almost 2,000 people, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, tried to cross into Spain through what is known as Morocco’s Chinatown, jumping over the fence that separates it from Melilla. More than twenty emigrants died and hundreds were injured among migrants and Spanish and Moroccan agents.
In an interview with EFE, Beltrán explains that “riot control material and other weapons, such as bullets and rubber balls” were used in the operation to disperse the migrants, by the Moroccan and Spanish authorities, who, in his opinion, carried carried out “a joint operation that caused serious human rights violations.”
The worst tragedy in 25 years
“What happened was the largest massacre on the border in the last 25 years,” said Beltrán, who affirmed that, according to the investigation carried out by Amnesty International, those affected “did not even receive medical assistance during the first hours of the harassment and they were prevented from access to Red Cross ambulances”.
The head of this NGO in Spain figures at 470 people “returned to Morocco illegally by the Spanish authorities in summary returns.” And about a thousand “refugees bused back into the desert.”
“People died on Spanish soil,” says Beltrán, who defends that “questioning it is only a technicality and a sterile debate.”
“How else would the Civil Guard have seized and transferred people to Moroccan territory?”, he wonders.
Impunity at the border
For Beltrán, Melilla is a “border full of impunity.” Since “not a single person has been sentenced for what happened, not even a judicial proceeding has been initiated.” Something that “feeds that these cases continue to occur” and that “will persist until there is a thorough, independent and impartial investigation.”
“The governments of Spain and Morocco jointly commit human rights violations against immigrants at the border,” Beltrán forcefully reaffirms. He adds: “When both governments blame the Sudanese refugees for the jump, they show their connection with impunity.”
To put an end to situations like this, Beltrán sees it as “fundamental” that the authorities allow people to “approach the posts set up to request asylum at the border.” So that Ceuta and Melilla stop being “a limbo without rights” and “exceptional” enclaves in the shelter of refugees.
“With Ukraine the same has not happened. Five and a half million Ukrainians have taken refuge in the face of Russian aggression. But we receive the sub-Saharan refugees, who are black, with beatings,” says Beltrán. That he believes that “the European governments in relation to the refuge have a racist component because they do not use the same standards for everyone.”
Host discrimination
According to the director of Amnesty International Spain, “a truth has been built by the States that the Ukrainians need to be welcomed because they come from an aggression.” Something that “does not happen with the rest” of asylum seekers.
For Beltrán, this last legislature in Spain “has had its lights and shadows” in terms of migration. Although he values positively some “advances” that have been carried out. Like the largest record of racist attacks or the work permit for immigrants under 18 years of age.
Even so, from Amnesty they maintain that in order to really combat the “scourge” that racism entails, three elements must be combined: that governments have the “political will to combat it” and develop “forceful” legislation, that “updated information” be disclosed ” and that no one “goes unpunished”.