The UN rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday that both countries should launch an urgent investigation into the deaths of at least 23 migrants who died while attempting to cross from Morocco to Spanish territory. This was in response to reports that at least 50 migrants were discovered dead in a truck in southern Texas overnight.
The Morocco-Spain border incident took place last Friday when African migrants were reportedly “beaten with batons, kicked, shoved, and attacked with stones by Moroccan officials”, said OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani, in their attempt to scale the barbed-wire fence that separates Morocco from the North African, Spanish city of Melilla.
“This is the highest recorded number of deaths in a single incident over many years of migrants attempting to cross from Morocco to Europe via the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta,” she said. “140 Moroccan border guards also reportedly sustained injuries.”
Border protection call
The OHCHR representative urged Morocco and Spain to take steps to protect migrants’ human rights at their shared border and to prohibit border officers from using excessive force.
She claimed that in light of the “competing accounts” of what took place, a separate investigation was required.
“We also call on them to take to all necessary steps alongside the European Union, the African Union, and other relevant international and regional actors – to ensure human rights-based border governance measures are in place,” Ms. Shamdasani continued.
“These include access to safe migration pathways, access to individualised assessments and protection from collective expulsions and from refoulement, as well as from arbitrary arrest and detention.”
Texas truck tragedy
In a related development, Ms. Shamdasani expressed shock at reports that at least 50 bodies of migrants had reportedly been discovered in an abandoned truck on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, after having apparently crossed the border from Mexico.
According to reports, among the deceased migrants were twenty migrants from Mexico, seven from Guatemala, and two from Honduras who had experienced heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Among those who were discovered alive and taken to a hospital for treatment were four children.
Three people have been taken into custody in relation to the terrible incident.
“This is not the first such tragedy, and it illustrates again the critical need for regular safe pathways for migration as well as for accountability for those persons whose conduct has directly led to such loss of life,” the OHCHR official said.