The National Human Rights Council (CNDH) of Morocco, a body that is defined in its statutes as independent, but whose president is appointed by the Moroccan king, and whose powers are comparable to those of the Ombudsman in Spain, has blamed the Spanish authorities for not providing "the necessary assistance and relief" to the victims of the jump over the Melilla fence that left at least 23 dead on June 24, all of them migrants and mostly from Sudan.
The president of the CNDH, Amina Bouayach, appeared this Wednesday at a press conference in Rabat to present the preliminary conclusions of the investigation that this body has undertaken.
Bouayach, accompanied by several members of her team, including a doctor, stated that, according to the testimonies collected, the cause of most of the deaths was "mechanical suffocation" caused by the stampede or the fall of the fence between Nador and Melilla.
She specified that autopsies remain to be performed on the 23 corpses, which still remain unburied.
Amina Bouayach, who was appointed in 2018 by King Mohamed VI to head the CNDH, an institution with 170 employees, declared in words collected by the Efe agency: "Based on a series of testimonies, specifically those of NGOs, the commission invokes the hypothesis of violence beyond the fence, due to the refusal or hesitation of the Spanish authorities to provide aid and assistance despite the stampede and the great agglomeration of the emigrants at the revolving metal doors at the border post that remained hermetically sealed, which led to an increase in injuries and deaths.”
Bouayach added that "the doors were closed" from the Spanish side, despite the fact that the "responsibility" for opening the doors corresponded to the Spanish authorities, according to the president of the CNDH.
“The Spanish authorities,” he indicated, “have used violence and would not have assisted the injured who were jumping or falling from the fence, in addition to the fact that at the time of the stampede the doors (access to the border crossing) were closed, but his responsibility was to open them.”
The CNDH also assures in its report that 5 of the 23 fatalities have already arrived dead at the hospital, and that in addition 217 wounded were registered (according to this institution, 140 of them from the security forces and the rest, 77, emigrants).
Spanish diplomatic sources recall that the CNDH is an organization "in theory independent" and decline to comment on its provisional report, informs
Miguel González
.
For its part, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior indicated that "it does not assess the preliminary statements of the CNDH", but reiterates that "the Civil Guard acted at all times within the national and international legal framework, always with criteria of proportionality and full respect for human rights, without any type of action contrary to them being attributed to any of the agents.”
The preliminary report of the National Human Rights Council has been presented five days after the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, traveled to Rabat together with the European Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson, to meet with his Moroccan counterpart, Abdelouafi Laftit.
Marlaska praised Morocco as a "reliable" partner and declared: "Morocco is doing important work to contain irregular emigration, which must be recognized."
Those words of praise were even more explicit in the document signed by Marlaska, the European commissioner and the Moroccan minister.
At the latter's request, the three authorities welcomed the CNDH's "information mission" to "clarify the facts."
And they added, at the request of Laftit: "Respect for fundamental rights is a value shared by Morocco and the European Union."
The praise that Marlaska dedicated to Morocco on July 8 in Rabat is just the culmination of a series of gestures by the Spanish government that began with the dismissal in July last year of the Foreign Minister, Arancha González Laya, just two months later that Morocco claimed his head.
Her successor, José Manuel Albares, opened the position with great praise also towards Morocco.
But Rabat wanted more.
And what he wanted he got last March, when President Pedro Sánchez sent a letter to Mohamed VI in which he clearly advocated the Moroccan proposal for autonomy for Western Sahara.
That caused Algeria to withdraw its ambassador in Madrid, Said Musi, the next day.
And that it continues to block trade with Spain, with the exception of gas.
Pedro Sánchez reaped a barrage of criticism from the left on June 24 when, a few hours after jumping the fence, the president pointed out that it had been "well resolved" by the Spanish and Moroccan security forces.
The next day, June 25, when it was already known that Morocco recognized at least 23 dead and videos had circulated in which Moroccan gendarmes were seen beating the wounded and keeping dozens of people, apparently unconscious, huddled next to the fence, Sánchez reiterated his support for Morocco and again avoided any words of condolence for the victims.
In subsequent days, he qualified his position and argued that he had not seen the images [of the victims of the jump] when he made his first statement on the 24th.
The Spanish Government remains firm in its decision to deepen ties with Morocco.
One of the latest gestures has been to facilitate the transport of gas to Morocco through the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline (GME), which was deactivated by Algeria on October 31.
The fact that Spain has reactivated the pipeline in the reverse direction —with gas that reaches the Iberian Peninsula by ship, where it is regasified and sent to the southern shore of the Mediterranean— has allowed Morocco to start up two combined cycle power plants that have been paralyzed since Algeria cut off supplies.