The Moroccan Justice has sentenced to two and a half years in prison thirteen migrants for their involvement in the jump to the fence of Melilla last June 24, which resulted in between 23 and 37 migrants died, according to different sources.
The Moroccan media have echoed this Thursday the decision of the Court of First Instance of Nador, which has sentenced these thirteen migrants for alleged involvement in relation to the assault on the Melilla fence.
“Two and a half years in prison and 10,000 dirhams (950 euros) fine against the thirteen migrants judged by the Court of Appeals of Nador. Very harsh verdict that shows how the judiciary mobilized against migrants seeking refuge in the service of migration policies,” the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH-Nador) said Wednesday.
Already in July, the Moroccan judiciary sentenced 33 migrants to eleven months in prison for “organizing and facilitating the illegal exit and entry of people into Morocco, insulting public officials in the exercise of their duties, and exercising violence against them, as well as disobedience.
At 08.40 a.m. on June 24, a group of more than 500 sub-Saharans started the entry to Melilla after breaking with a shears the access gate of the border checkpoint of Barrio Chino, jumping over the roof of the same.
Associations of Spanish civil guards denounced the use of steel bars and cutting tools by the migrants, who acted with “maximum seriousness”, while Melilla authorities assured that the group was “perfectly organized and (was) violent”.
AMDH denounced at the time that, after the clashes, the Moroccan security forces manhandled and piled the immobilized migrants on the ground in the streets of Chinatown in the city of Nador, images that went around the world.
The jump to the Melilla fence in June was the first of these characteristics since the normalization of relations between Spain and Morocco in April 2022, following the change of position of the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, on Western Sahara. It coincided, moreover, just a few days before the NATO summit in Madrid, on June 29-30.