Adam, a 24-year-old young man from Sudan, managed to enter Melilla that morning of June 24, 2022 when the attempt to jump the fence that separates Spain from Morocco ended with at least 37 migrants dead, although the Moroccan authorities only recognize 23 deaths.. There were also hundreds of injuries and 77 people are still missing.. The images disseminated on social networks and the media have exposed the actions of the police forces of the neighboring country, which led to a massacre.
A year later, Adam shares his memories of that tragic day in which he lost his friend Anwar. “We were in the camp and they warned us, the day before, that we had to turn ourselves in or face the police.. 'We will not give in', was our response.. The next day, at sunset, we began to descend the mountain,” he recalls.. “We try not to attract attention, moving slowly and making stops. We met other boys who were in the Gurugú”, the story continues.
«We saw in the distance vans of the gendarmes who observed us but did not say anything. It was as if they let us continue. Before we reached the fence, policemen began to appear from all sides, shooting rubber bullets and tear gas canisters, which prevented us from seeing. The other group headed towards where the police were, possibly because their eyes were damaged by the gas.. They beat them with batons and anything that would cause damage.. They also threw some bombs that made an unbearable noise. Many boys fell to the ground and others in the forward flight stepped on them, that was run or die. So we broke the door with an electric saw, we managed to open it and cross to Melilla, where a group of friends who had managed to arrive in the jump on March 3, received us.
It was the end of a journey of almost three years since he left his country until he arrived in Morocco together with his compatriots Hussein and Yaya and also his friend Anwar, who lost his life that day.. Due to the tear gas, he took the wrong path and headed towards the area where the fence gave way.
Anwar, one of those who died a year ago in the jump.
That day, 105 people managed to enter Melilla and 470 were returned to Morocco in what the Spanish authorities recognize as “rejections at the border”.. The wounded on the Moroccan side were not treated in hospitals and had to heal as best they could.. Only the most serious were admitted to centers in Nador. The corpses are still deposited in the morgue of this Moroccan city.
makeshift pits
Some survivors say that many of their friends were buried in makeshift graves along the way.. Others were abandoned in the south, near the big cities without food or water.. Now they occupy abandoned buildings on the outskirts of Casablanca, guarded by the Moroccan police who do not let them move.. Musa, 27, is one of those who remain hidden there: “Morocco is a horrible place. The police are very violent and they don't let you beg on the street to eat. They bring us traffickers who tell us that if our family pays some money, we can get to Europe.. If not, they threaten us to return to Libya and I'd rather die here than go back there,” he says.
Something that Yaya, another of the young people who managed to jump the fence and is now following the procedure to obtain asylum in Spain, confirms: “In Libya they sell us as slaves to work and sometimes they don't give us food. Women are sent to gulf countries as slaves too. Nobody does anything against the Libyans who are benefiting from our needs.”
We'll keep looking for our friends
The three young people ask that their stories are not forgotten. They still remember with sadness those days in Melilla, when they cried as they learned the names of the deceased. “I will keep looking for many of my friends while I have strength left. I think those of us who made it through have that responsibility to families that are torn apart,” says Hussein.
In 2020 the Government ordered the removal of the concertinas that crowned the Melilla fence to build a new structure of more than 10 meters high and crowned by cylindrical rollers that prevent climbing but do not cut, so they are less harmful to those who try to jump.
During the week in which the massacre occurred, half a thousand gendarmes and auxiliary forces surrounded the migrant camp and attacked it with gas.. On Tuesday, June 21, there was a brief truce, but on Wednesday and Thursday the violence intensified. On the 23rd, an incursion by another 500 gendarmes caused a fire in the forest that put them in danger. It was the warning of what would happen. They had 24 hours to leave the place or the violence would escalate in the next raid.. With few resources, without food or water, the migrants decided to undertake a risky flight forward, towards the fence.
They had no grappling hooks or ladders to climb the fence, but they had managed to get hold of a chainsaw and some shears.. With these tools, they decided to force one of the gates in the fence so that no one was left behind.. Many were at the limit of their physical strength, without the energy to jump the six-meter wall. The migrants were involved in a confrontation with Moroccan forces upon reaching the Chinatown area, one of the most difficult sections of the fence. As could be seen in the videos distributed through social networks, the migrants were violently ambushed.
The National Human Rights Council of Morocco (CNDH), a body dependent on the Moroccan government, presented a report days later in which it stated that the deaths were caused by “mechanical suffocation”” when the fence gave way due to the weight of the people on it. to her. The Moroccan government blamed the Spanish authorities for the deaths. This conclusion is questioned by the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), which demands an impartial investigation, which a year later has not taken place. Migrants say the real number of victims is higher. There is news of at least a hundred of them.