Melilla: Spain's judiciary closes investigations into the deaths of refugees

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Scene from June 24, 2022 in Melilla: migrants have crossed the fence between Morocco and Spain

Photo: Javier Bernardo/AP

Spanish prosecutors dropped their investigation into the deaths of at least 23 migrants at the border fence in Spain's North African exclave of Melilla in June.

Prosecutors said they found no evidence of a crime in the actions of the Spanish security forces.

Spanish officials were unaware that people in the crowd needed medical attention.

The refugees had behaved "constantly hostile and violent" towards the Moroccan and Spanish police.

On June 24, several hundred migrants, mostly from Sudan, tried to cross the border fence between Morocco and Melilla to get into the EU.

The young men died in a crowd in a narrow courtyard in front of a border gate, which was bombarded with tear gas, and in the brutal intervention of Moroccan police officers that followed.

Spain and Morocco have denied any responsibility for the people's deaths.

The prosecutor stressed that everything had developed very quickly and that the Spanish security forces had not been able to see the danger.

The death of the refugees in the mass rush to the Melilla border fence had caused international outrage.

SPIEGEL has painstakingly reconstructed the events in a video together with international partner media.

"Serious and multiple violations of human rights" according to Amnesty International

Amnesty International has also made serious allegations against Spanish police officers.

"We're talking about massive killings, enforced disappearances, torture, pushbacks (forced returns) and racism," Amnesty Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said at a press conference in Madrid last week.

The director of the Spanish section of the human rights group, Esteban Beltrán, specifically blamed Spanish officials for the tragedy.

In a report, Amnesty International assumed at least 37 deaths and blamed Spain and Morocco for the deaths of the migrants.

There is overwhelming evidence of "serious and multiple violations of human rights."

According to the report, police officers threw stones at migrants and fired tear gas at them in closed rooms.

The Spanish Interior Ministry dismissed the report, saying it contained "false allegations".

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska stressed that there were no deaths on Spanish soil.

These are tragic circumstances on the territory of another country, namely Morocco.

Spanish police officers would have kept to the law.

Melilla and the other Spanish exclave of Ceuta share the EU's only land border with Africa.

The areas are therefore regularly the destination of people who hope for a better life in Europe.

mgo/AFP/dpa