Some 2,500 people have staged this Wednesday morning the largest attempt to jump the fence in Melilla in recent years, according to estimates by the Government Delegation in the autonomous city.
The perimeter security cameras used by the Civil Guard to monitor the border have captured the approach of several groups at different points of the fence around nine in the morning, as confirmed by the Government delegate in Melilla, Sabrina Moh.
In total, 491 migrants have managed to access from Morocco, mostly sub-Saharan, according to estimates by the Executive.
The migrants have gathered at the doors of the Temporary Immigrant Stay Center (CETI).
Twenty of them have been transferred to the Regional Hospital to treat various injuries and bruises.
A migrant shows his joy after jumping the Melilla fence, this Wednesday.Antonio Ruiz
According to Moh, the bulk of the entry has occurred in just 10 minutes, between 9:30 and 9:40.
The migrants have been distributed throughout the entire area between the Chinatown and Farhana border crossings, where there are some sensitive points in the fence.
"Since I've been in the Government Delegation, there hasn't been such a numerous attempt," said the delegate, who has been in office since 2018.
Such a large jump attempt had never been recorded in Melilla.
On May 28, 2014, there was another massive attempt that is close to what happened this Wednesday.
Between 1,000 and 2,000 people participated in it, according to the sources.
Interior then counted the entry of 470 people in Melilla.
The pressure on the perimeter that year was extraordinary and constant, with several collective attempts taking place at the same time with the aim of bypassing the security forces and securing entry.
Paradoxically, in 2013 the devices deployed on the fence to prevent entry had been tightened.
01:15
Migrants jump the Melilla fence
Moment of jumping the fence from the Spanish side, in some images released by police sources.
This latest jump has occurred at one of the lowest occupancy times at the Temporary Immigrant Stay Center (CETI), where in February and for the first time in the last decade, less than 100 people were registered, according to data from the Secretary of State for Migration.
In 2014, the CETI received more than 5,000 people.
In 2020, during the confinement decreed due to the pandemic, more than 1,600 people had to live together in fully closed facilities equipped for 782 people.
Sources from police unions assure that it is one of the most violent jumps, something that they denounce on a regular basis.
The migrants almost always approach the fence with hooks, shoes with nails and sticks to help them climb and avoid the anti-climbing mesh that covers the fence.
Twenty-five civil guards and two police officers have required medical assistance, all of them of a minor nature, as confirmed by the Government Delegation.
Sources from the Unified Association of Civil Guards of Melilla affect the number of hot returns that have been made on this occasion.
Images broadcast by RTVE show agents accompanying children, which would mean an express return of minors and which is prohibited by Spanish law.
A migrant injured after crossing the fence in Melilla, this Wednesday.
Anthony Ruiz
Other recordings, broadcast on Melilla public television, have recorded returns of migrants who remained perched on the fence and, after descending, have been escorted and forced to return to Moroccan territory.
The pressure on the perimeter had been reduced after several entry attempts of up to 500 people were registered in December 2021.
As of January, there have been several attempts by small groups, mostly Moroccans trying to enter Melilla due to the persistence of the border closure imposed in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
Several NGOs have denounced that, among those returned to Morocco, they have observed at least three wounded from the Moroccan side of the border, who have not received medical attention.
The organization Solidary Wheels estimates that at least 30 migrants have been returned.
And several of them have remained perched on the fence until eleven in the morning.
The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), in the neighboring city of Nador, has indicated that 31 injured migrants were transferred to the city's Hassani hospital, three of them in serious condition.
The same source indicates that the Moroccan authorities have chartered up to seven buses to transfer the migrants to detention centers.
In a video broadcast by the AMDH on its Twitter account, a moment of the jump is shown.
“The victory today in Melilla.
Many injured.
No to hot returns”, reads the message, written in French and with the word “victory” written in the Fula language
(Booza),
spoken by the Fulani ethnic group in West African countries.
Le boooza d'aujourd'hui avec Melilla.
Bcp de blessés.
Non aux refoulements à chaud pic.twitter.com/nymT7QPMrM
– AMDH Nador (@NadorAmdh) March 2, 2022
Almost two decades of border pressure
With the incorporation of Spain to the EU, in 1986, the 11-kilometer perimeter that encloses the town on the Moroccan coast, began to divide two worlds as one of the most unequal borders on the planet.
Along with Ceuta, Melilla is the only land demarcation between Europe and Africa.
The most numerous attempt until this Wednesday occurred on May 28, 2014, in the midst of the migration crisis aggravated by the influx of Syrian asylum seekers who arrived in Morocco hoping to access Spain due to the closure of other routes.
Until 2004, most entry attempts through the perimeter occurred individually or in small groups that avoided detection.
In August of that year, the first massive, coordinated and simultaneous entry occurred with the aim of surpassing the containment capacity of the Spanish forces.
At least 400 people tried to get around the fence, of which about 50 succeeded.
The method was consolidated.
The Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero installed a year later, in 2005, the controversial razor wire fences, which he removed in 2007 and which the Government of Mariano Rajoy put back in 2013. Finally, they were removed in 2021, a commitment that the minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, had been delaying.
Since the border closure was decreed in 2020, the pressure has been constant.
Between 2019 and 2022 there have been numerous jumps featuring groups of between 50 and 400 or 500 people.
Added to this is the tension registered since May 2021 and after the crisis unleashed in Ceuta in which more than 10,000 people crossed into Spanish territory in just two days.
Almost every week, Moroccan nationals gain access to the city by crossing the fence in groups of dozens of people.