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The Civil Guard of Melilla is already working on some proceedings that will be reported to the prosecutor of the Immigration Chamber, Beatriz Sánchez, after the open investigation to find out what happened on June 24 at the border. Morocco recognizes 23 dead but the NGOs raise the victims to 37 and the figure could increase, according to the number of wounded that exceeded 70 people.
The Prosecutor’s Office wants to know what happened and for this it has asked the Civil Guard, according to sources from the Corps, to provide all the data and images of both those crucial hours in which the attempted mass entry took place -and the deaths- as well as the previous; also the type of information that the Spanish agents had the previous days, as well as what the Moroccans had transmitted to them.
Based on these “prevention” proceedings, as they are called, it will be possible to determine if a crime has been committed in Morocco, and if it is prosecutable by Spain, something that seems unlikely.
On the day of the events, the Civil Guard helicopter spotted the human tide coming down from Mount Gurugú at 7:30 in the morning; At 8 o’clock they captured how the Moroccan agents separated them into two groups and just 20 minutes later the attempted assault took place in which 133 Sub-Saharans managed to sneak in and some 200 were returned in the following hours.
Despite the fact that Morocco officially throws balls out, that same day agents who were at the fence received information from their colleagues on the other side that they reported 45 deaths due to crushing and five casualties among their own security forces. This data has not been confirmed and it is likely that it never will be. Agents who worked on the border perimeter throughout that day explained to ABC that they had never seen such a massive deployment of Moroccan police forces (there was talk of between 300 and 500), but at the same time they expressed their astonishment at the scant organization and the way Act.
The first, according to these testimonies, caused the migrants to corner the Moroccan agents against the fence and the second caused them to use disproportionate force that, at times, complicated the actions of the civil guards. They say that they did not stop launching smoke canisters, for example, that prevented them from seeing clearly and repelling the massive jump.
The day before, the Moroccan security forces had clashed with a large group of Sudanese settled in Gurugú whom they intended to evict. They informed their colleagues that nearly a hundred of those officers had been injured. There are those who venture that the violent response of the 24th had its germ in those previous hours and in those injured policemen.
All this information is what, in theory, will be included in a report that the Civil Guard will make available to the Prosecutor’s Office. It is being prepared at the highest level and has the participation of Information agents. However, Interior sources assure that no report is being prepared for the Public Prosecutor’s Office and that this data collection and analysis is part of the usual protocols of the Security Forces and Bodies.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism