This Thursday morning, hundreds of migrants crossed the border between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. In recent days, the crisis has worsened, with increasingly violent security forces. A disagreement between Morocco and Spain raises fears of the worst.
It has been ten days since successive waves of migrants attempt to cross the land border between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla.
This Thursday morning, a fourth, even larger wave received a violent reception, with the Spanish police bringing out the batons. The Moroccan media count dozens of injured - in addition to the 62 injured, including 4 serious, last week - and the images of police violence have shocked, on social networks.
Last Tuesday and Thursday, more than 800 African migrants from Morocco or countries in sub-Saharan Africa crossed the 6-meter barrier separating Moroccan territory from the Spanish enclave. With the events of this morning, it is the most massive attempt to enter Melilla ever recorded.
Ukrainian refugees welcomed but sub-Saharan refugees beaten, it is the policy of Spain… pic.twitter.com/zOaDHmNSou
- AJ + French (@ajplusfrancais) March 8, 2022
Something to remember, last May, a similar phenomenon having taken place in Ceuta, the second region under Spanish control in northern Morocco. It was then, according to several observers, the consequence of the reception by Spain of the Saharawi leader Brahim Ghali, who had been hospitalized there.
Morocco is doing "colossal work"
In Rabat, government spokesman Mustapha El Khalfi assures that Morocco is doing “a colossal job to monitor its borders”. Not easy to see.
For his part, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs declared: “This is a very worrying fact. It's been months since this type of arrival happened, and when there were attempts, they were repelled, in collaboration with the Moroccan authorities, without reaching this level of seriousness”.
As a reminder, Spain had colonized Melilla in 1496 and Ceuta in 1580. The two enclaves, 400 kilometers apart from each other, have around 80 inhabitants each and have had the status of autonomous cities since 000.
Since its independence in 1956, Morocco has contested the attachment of Ceuta and Melilla to Spain, considering them as colonial legacies.
Diplomatic tensions between Morocco and Spain?
The Spanish and French media underline a similarity between the current events in Melilla and those last May in Ceuta.
On the sidelines of the last European Union (EU)-African Union (AU) Summit on 17 and 18 February, the presence of the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, had irritated Morocco.
The Moroccan diplomat Lahcen Haddad then denounced the presence of the Saharawi leader. In a letter addressed to MEPs, he assured that “history has shown us that provocation has always been a factor of instability”. A thinly veiled threat.
Would the Cherifian kingdom have taken action? Nothing less certain, especially since, contrary to the events in Ceuta, the Moroccan police forces do not pose as mere spectators, but effectively prevented the waves of migrants from crossing last week.