MADRID: A 27-year-old Moroccan man suffocated to death while trying to illegally enter Spain hidden inside a suitcase in the trunk of a car, police said on Monday.

The man’s older brother appears to have tried to smuggle him into Spain by ferry.

The older man, aged 34, legally boarded the ferry linking Melilla, a tiny Spanish territory in north Africa, and Almeria in southern Spain with a car on Sunday, a police spokesman said.

During the crossing he noticed that his brother was not breathing and alerted the ferry’s staff.

Crew members as well as emergency services workers in the port of Almeria tried in vain to resuscitate the man.

Police have charged the man’s brother with involuntary manslaughter.

In May police discovered an eight-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast curled up inside a suitcase — without air vents — that was being carried across a pedestrian crossing from Morocco into Ceuta, Spain’s other north African territory.

A security scanner picture of the boy curled up in the suitcase served as a shocking reminder of the lengths migrants take to try to seek a better life in Europe.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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