MADRID: At least 18 African migrants died in the latest drama on the doors of the European Union, when around 2,000 mostly sub-Saharan African migrants approached the Moroccan border with the tiny territory at dawn on Friday.

More than 500 managed to enter a border control area after cutting a fence with shears, Melilla authorities said in a statement.

Moroccan officials said late Friday that 13 migrants had died of injuries sustained in the incursion, in addition to five confirmed dead earlier in the day.

“Some fell from the top of the barrier” separating the two sides, a Moroccan official said.

The Spanish prime minister described the deadly rush from Morocco as an attack on Spain’s “territorial integrity”, as human rights activists demanded an investigation.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told journalists in Madrid that “if anyone is responsible for everything that happened at the border, it is the mafias that traffic in human beings.”

But Morocco’s AMDH human rights group said it was “a true catastrophe that shows the consequences of the latest Moroccan-Spanish entente”, just weeks after the two sides resolved a year-long diplomatic rift.

Images on Spanish media on Friday showed exhausted migrants lying on the pavement in Melilla, some with bloodied hands and torn clothes.

The AMDH demanded a “comprehensive, quick and serious enquiry to determine responsibilities and shortcomings”, and warned against burying the migrants’ bodies until their deaths had been properly investigated.

Residents of the Barrio Chino neighbourhood on the Moroccan side of the barrier said they were in shock.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2022