A Sudanese who survived the Melilla tragedy goes to the Spanish embassy in Rabat to request asylum

A young Sudanese man who survived the tragedy in Melilla on June 24th went to the Spanish embassy in Rabat on Tuesday to request asylum.

Accompanied by a Spanish legal team, the 24-year-old boy named Basir alleges religious persecution in his country and fear for his life in Morocco.

According to the lawyers, the diplomatic delegation has accepted and sealed the documentation that supports the request, a way of acknowledging receipt that would force the ambassador to decide whether to facilitate the transfer of the young man so that the Sudanese can request international protection and study his case in Spain. .

The initiative has great symbolic and political weight and places the Spanish authorities in front of the mirror.

Spain has defended in various situations that any person in need of protection can go to the Spanish embassies and request asylum and that, this being the case, an irregular entry by jumping over a fence would not be justified.

But this case tests the veracity of that argument and the compliance of the legislation by the Spanish authorities.

Although the possibility of requesting international protection in embassies is included in the 2009 asylum law, it is not really accessible, especially for sub-Saharans, and more specifically in the Spanish embassy in Rabat.

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Beni Mellal, the banishment of those who try to reach Spain

The objective of the lawyers from the legal team of DEMOS, Legal Study of Human Rights, is that the young person can be transferred to Spanish territory so that his request can be studied.

This is established in a circular sent in November 2009 to all ambassadors.

The note dictates that an ambassador, within the framework of his functions, has the power so that, if according to his criteria "the physical integrity of that person is in danger", the transfer to the national territory is carried out (which implies facilitating a visa if necessary and, if necessary, obtain a one-way plane ticket to Spain).

One of the young man's lawyers, Arsenio G. Cores, explained in a press release:

Basir's father and one of his brothers were killed when he was a teenager, in an attack that left him seriously injured.

The young man comes from the State of South Kordofan, one of the areas where the armed conflict is most intense and where the army, paramilitary and tribal groups have committed the largest number of extrajudicial executions in the country, generating a context of impunity and lack of protection. for the civilian population.

After the massacre, he fled his village and took refuge with relatives, but they ended up threatening him if he did not convert to Islam.

Frightened, he fled in search of a safe place to live that lasts until today.

political significance

Although it is an individual case, the initiative has political significance.

Spain defended before the European Court of Human Rights when the legality of the return in 2014 of two young sub-Saharan Africans who could have requested asylum in their diplomatic delegations was analyzed.

The argument worked before the court that, in 2020, supported Spain and considered that the return "had been a consequence of their own conduct" because they had legal alternatives and did not use them.

The opinion of the court and the Spanish argument clashed, however, with the reports of the Ombudsman and various NGOs, which have spent years denouncing that these procedures are not real.

But the issue has once again prevailed in the public debate with the tragedy in Melilla on June 24.

That day, 470 people who managed to enter the autonomous city were returned without legal procedure to Morocco where, according to what they later denounced, they were beaten and taken by force to distant cities.

Many of the victims and those returned were refugees from Sudan who, in many cases, had already sought protection in other African countries without much success.

In his appearance on November 30, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, referred to this issue in Congress: "Spain is a host country for any asylum seeker who knocks on our doors, but it cannot allow Let no one try to tear them down by force."

Grande-Marlaska affirmed that it is false that people "violently assaulted our borders due to the impossibility of requesting asylum."

And he added: "You, ladies and gentlemen, we, everyone, know that the asylum law clearly defines the spaces where to request asylum [...]".

One of those places, as determined by the 2009 asylum law, are the Spanish embassies.

This was also recalled by the Ombudsman,

"Risky for him"

The legal team, which took on Basir's case pro bono, is now concerned for the young man's safety.

The lawyer Arsenio G. Cores has explained that the step that Basir has taken "is risky for him" while in Morocco and that he needs urgent protection.

The lawyer added: “Although as a refugee he has rights recognized by law, the Spanish State on June 24 decided to act against that legality, leaving him unprotected by illegally expelling him from Melilla and violating his human right to request asylum.

Spain is responsible for the situation of vulnerability and risk that it has generated against a refugee, who is only trying to survive and who never thought of coming to Spain, but who was not protected by any State”.

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