The first massive jump to the Melilla fence of the new stage of relations between Spain and Morocco has been repressed with great force by the gendarmes. More than a thousand agents urgently displaced from other areas of Morocco, according to government sources, have been deployed in the border area after being alerted that a "violent" and "organized" group of some 2,000 immigrants would head to the city autonomous, which has finally been reached by 130 of them.
Serious clashes between immigrants who tried to advance and police who blocked their way have resulted in at least five sub-Saharans killed during a stampede and more than a hundred gendarmes injured.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has thanked Brussels for the "extraordinary cooperation" with Morocco in the face of this fact. "The Moroccan Gendarmerie has worked hard to try to prevent this violent assault, well organized, well perpetrated and well resolved by the two security forces", he assured from Brussels while asking to be aware that the neighboring country also suffers from a problem of migratory pressure due to the arrival of citizens from other African countries and in particular from a very unstable area such as the Sahel.
To understand the cooperation to which the leader of the Executive refers, it is enough to face two episodes: the last avalanche witnessed by the Melilla fence -at the beginning of March- while relations between Madrid and Rabat were broken and the massive jump lived this Friday, three months later. In the middle of both Pedro Sánchez and the King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, sealed a new stage –in exchange for a historic turn to the Spanish position on Western Sahara– in which the reinforcement of migratory cooperation was reflected.
On March 2 and 3, almost 4,000 immigrants left Mount Gurugú –in the Moroccan city of Nador, 15 kilometers from Melilla–. And virtually everyone made it to the fence unhindered. Some 900 enter Melilla. The Government, according to ministerial sources, saw "a clear passivity" from Morocco: "It is impossible for Rabat not to detect a column of thousands of people up to the border." Today 2,000 have tried and 130 have entered.
The Moroccan authorities have acted against the hundreds of migrants who have armed themselves with home-made knives, acid, hammers and stones, according to police sources. Also with hooks to climb the fence. The same sources point to violence "that had not been seen in years."
The NGO Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) has denounced "the growing violence on both sides." The same association has asked the migrant community "to move away from these violent practices."
The war report in numbers evidences such hostility. According to the data offered on one side or the other of the border, 76 more injured emigrants have been recorded (13 of them seriously) and another 140 Moroccan agents treated for injuries (5 seriously). On the Spanish side, the balance of those affected has been less serious and the assault has resulted in 106 people injured, specifically 49 Civil Guard agents and 57 immigrants, of whom three have had to be taken to hospital.
For its part, Morocco speaks of one of a thousand detained migrants. In a video you can see how some remained inert on the ground surrounded by a police cordon. Despite all these efforts, around 9:00 a.m. some 500 immigrants managed to reach the fence.
After breaking the access door of the Chinatown border control post with a shear, they have begun to enter the autonomous city. The hundred migrants who have succeeded – all of them men and “apparently of legal age, according to the Government Delegation – have been transferred to the Temporary Stay Center for Immigrants.
