Coastguards used force against hundreds of migrants who tried to cross the border in Melilla, Spain, in late June. At the time, human rights associations denounced abuses by the authorities, but the images from the surveillance cameras disappeared. Now, a bbc report is questioning the official versions of Spain and Morocco about the incidents on the border of the enclave of Melilla, between the two countries, on June 24 of this year.
British public television is broadcasting images that prove Moroccan security forces removed the dead and wounded from the area between the two fences, which is legally Spanish territory. The BBC is aware of the use of rubber bullets at point-blank range against immigrants and the handing over of detainees from the Spanish side to the Moroccan authorities. There are more than 400 detainees who are said to have been beaten by Moroccan border guards.
Spain has never been able to explain the mysterious failure of the security images that could help clarify what happened.
Both Spanish and Moroccans have always affirmed that it was a premeditated attack. What the BBC is now showing is the result of a cooperative investigation that saw videos, visited security facilities in Spain and Morocco, compared stories and interviewed witnesses who survived June 24 of this year in Melilla.
Some of this information, confirmed by videos collected in the meantime, shows a siege by Moroccan guards, who fired gas grenades and forced the migrants to climb the fences and cross to the Spanish side to escape.
The same accounts describe that the detainees were rounded up and treated like animals. The BBC says that he entered the control room of the Spanish Civil Guard in Melilla and concluded that there was no way not to see what the Moroccan guards were doing with the migrants.
Reports recorded by the BBC also increase the death toll from around 41 to more than 70. There are several investigations by various institutions still ongoing, including one by the African Union.
In Morocco, one of the reports confirms that, despite the fact that the area between the fences is Spanish territory, only Moroccans pass through there.
Source: TSF
