Rabat, Morocco– A Moroccan rights group on Saturday slammed “unjust” punishments given to migrants sentenced over a mass attempted crossing into the Spanish enclave of Melilla that left at least 23 dead.
Around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier on June 24 in an attempt to reach Spanish territory across one of the European Union’s two land borders with Africa.
Morocco has since handed dozens of migrants sentences of up to three years’ imprisonment on charges including illegal entry and violence against law enforcement officers.
“The sentences have been very severe and unjust,” Souad Lazreg, a member of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), said on Saturday, presenting a report on the migrants’ trials.
Lawyer Khalid Ameza, who has represented some of the migrants, said court documents “include confessions that they have denied throughout the legal process. Despite that, they were given very severe sentences.”
The verdicts lacked “logical and convincing arguments” to support them, he added.
In the cases of some migrants accused of violence against security forces or vandalism of public property, “the law enforcement personnel questioned had not identified” any specific individuals, Ameza said during the presentation, which was broadcast live on Facebook.
The death toll was the worst in years of such attempted crossings.
Moroccan authorities put the number of dead at 23 while the AMDH gave a figure of 27.
According to rights group Amnesty International and independent experts, at least 37 people lost their lives.
Melilla and its sister enclave of Ceuta have long been a magnet for those desperate to escape grinding poverty and hunger.
Both Morocco and Spain governments have insisted the migrants were to blame for the tragedy, with Rabat saying some died after falling while trying to scramble over the fence, while others suffocated as people panicked and a stampede started.
Spain’s public prosecutor on Friday closed an investigation into the deaths, saying investigators had found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Spanish security forces.