>From Morocco into Spain: Crowd of African migrants charges to border fence
UN official urges Spain to protect migrants' rights following release of
video that shows Spanish police using extreme violence.
First Published: 2014-10-20
MADRID - About 60 Africans scrambled over a border fence from Morocco into
Spanish territory Monday, as a UN official urged Spain to protect migrants'
rights following evidence of police abuse.
It was the latest in a string of attempts by desperate Africans trying to
reach European soil by scaling the seven-metre (23-foot), triple-layer fence
into the Spanish territory of Melilla, raising pressure on Spain's
government.
A crowd of Africans charged to the fence around dawn on Monday and about 60
made it across and ran into Melilla, some heading to a police station and
others to an immigration centre, Spanish government officials there said in
a statement.
A video of a previous attempt filmed by a rights group on October 15 showed
Spanish police beating an immigrant as he hung from the fence and then
carrying him apparently unconscious back to the Moroccan side.
That was the second of two bids last week by migrants which the Spanish
government described as "violent". It said several migrants and Spanish
police officers were injured in those attempts while a handful of Africans
made it across.
"This worries us," the spokeswoman in Spain for the UN High Commission for
Refugees, Maria Jesus Vega, said on Monday, reacting to last week's video.
"Whatever their reasons for trying to enter, these people must be respected
and these images show that some parties are not acting as they should...
There are people beating those who are on the fence."
UNHCR fears that Spanish police are denying "asylum procedures to people in
need of international protection, who come to Spain's southern border
fleeing war and persecution", Vega's office said in a statement on Friday.
It urged Spain to take all "necessary measures to prevent this kind of
situation from occurring again at Spain's borders".
Melilla has one of Europe's two land borders with Africa, along with another
nearby Spanish territory, Ceuta, to the west.
Spain has demanded more help from the European Union to deal with the flow
of migrants who head to Melilla and Ceuta, which has swelled over recent
months.
Other migrants try to sail across the 15-kilometre (nine-mile) strait from
Morocco to Spain in makeshift boats and dinghies, or to smuggle themselves
into the country hidden in vehicles.