The dust that has enveloped Spanish politics these days due to the Melilla fence tragedy was raised by two accusations launched by a BBC documentary: during the massive jump people died on Spanish territory and Moroccan police crossed the Spanish border to return immigrants - with or without life - who had crossed the border.
A version contrary to the one that during the almost five months that have elapsed since the event, on June 24, has been maintained by the Ministry of the Interior, which ensures that the event took place "in no man's land".
But, to whom does this gray area between the limits of Spain and Morocco belong, in which the human avalanche occurred? Despite the fact that there is no consensus, the Government has placed its "absolute confidence" in the thesis defended by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who has insisted that the tragedy happened in Morocco and only "tangentially" in Spain. Rabat officially recognized 23 deaths in its territory – a figure that some NGOs raise to 70.
The aforementioned "no man's land" was established during the second term of José María Aznar, when the former president of the Popular Party ordered the erection of a fence to stop the rise of irregular migrant arrivals. Until then, the limits between the two countries were delimited by stone milestones. The logical thing would have been to erect the new fence on the line that joined those landmarks, but Morocco refused. Thus, the Chinatown border crossing in Ceuta – where the June 24 tragedy occurred – was built on land that appears in the cadastre as Spanish. And it is to this that the opposition and the usual partners of the Government in Congress have clung to accuse the minister of lying.
However, in practice, Spain does not exercise sovereignty over the entire border crossing, according to the sources consulted. The post is divided into two: one area is for Spanish police action and the other is for Moroccan gendarmes. The Spanish customs building, in which an insufficient number of civil guards were present at the time of the jump, can be seen on the map that accompanies this information in green. This is where the turnstiles supervised by Spain are located to control the flow of people.
The immigrants, the majority of Sudanese origin, who arrived at the Chinatown border crossing accessed the courtyard through the main gate of Morocco. Once inside, several hundred of them crowded together trying to break the metal doors with sledgehammers and a radial, as can be seen in the aerial images. That yard was only accessed on that fateful day by the Moroccan police. In fact, the avalanche occurs when the gendarmes burst in to charge the migrants half an hour after they broke into the compound.
At that moment one of the doors gives way and a large group tries to pass at the same time causing chaos. Those who manage to get out of that mousetrap run to the customs office where the Spanish flag flies. There are no longer any civil guards inside, who have previously withdrawn due to the violence with which the migrants acted and to contain another group on the outskirts that had managed to set foot on national territory.
Dozens of people remain crowded at the metal gates. Many of them, due to the images broadcast, are inert, unconscious. In those minutes of maximum tension, a large amount of smoke and tear gas were launched from both sides of the fence. The agents who had vision on the ground of the consequences of the avalanche were the Moroccans. Migrants who are lying on the ground do not receive medical assistance on the spot, so proving that at that precise time and place there were already dead migrants will be a practically impossible task. The BBC takes it for granted. There is no evidence that any removal of a body was carried out within the border crossing. The investigation being carried out by the Prosecutor's Office will have to determine if there were victims in Spain to decide whether to open a procedure in a national court.
In the same videos that spread like wildfire after the jump, Moroccan policemen can be seen inside the border crossing transferring people abroad. Some walk on their own feet. Others are dragged, but it is not clear if they are fatalities. Outside, the bodies are placed one on top of the other until the emergency services arrive, which, according to associations in favor of human rights, took hours to do so.
Controlled the moments of maximum tension, the Moroccan police crosses the border and accesses national territory to carry out hot returns before an overwhelmed Civil Guard. Returns – or rejections at the border according to the language used by the coalition government – are included in the gag law, where only members of vulnerable groups and pregnant women are excluded from them. Sources from the armed institute recall that they are endorsed by the European Court of Human Rights and by three Constitutional rulings
