The Moroccan Human Rights Association, AMDH, reports that 27 people lost their lives during the Melilla crossing on June 24, a figure higher than the Moroccian government had announced. A senior AMDH official stated at a press conference that casualties were not counted when people died elsewhere after being transported across the border. In AMDH’s research, 64 individuals remain missing, and Spanish authorities have reportedly repatriated around a hundred people. The organization also criticized the lack of assistance provided to many of the crossing participants.
Omar Naji, a member of AMDH’s Nador chapter, argued that responsibility for the tragedy is shared. He questioned how Spanish police could have seen Moroccan police beating migrants a short distance away yet sent a hundred refugees back to Morocco. He also noted that it was not yet possible to confirm whether some migrants died after being deported. He added that Spain used tear gas and rubber bullets against migrants, resulting in further injuries and fatalities. This assessment is drawn from AMDH documentation summarized in their report.
According to AMDH’s investigations, about 1,500 migrants advanced from the mountains toward the border without facing resistance. The journey covers roughly six kilometers past the Auxiliary Forces barracks. The report states that authorities appeared to wait for the migrants at Melilla’s border, where security forces were fully deployed. AMDH notes that in the days prior, Moroccan police took steps to push people away from the area, including the forests where they had sought refuge.
AMD H details a strategy scenario in which refugees attacked the border without weapons but the resulting violence produced many deaths, injuries, and detentions. The organization suggests another hypothesis: migrants were allowed to reach the border to demonstrate to the Spanish partner what the Moroccan side could do to halt migration flows. This theory is presented in the AMDH report as a possible motivating factor behind the border actions.
border intervention
Around nine in the morning, many of the first migrants appeared at the border, including a number of Sudanese individuals who attempted to open the gate. They reportedly jumped the fence without provoking immediate clashes, but Moroccan police quickly intervened and used stones and smoke grenades against the migrants. AMDH notes that the earliest victims were likely identified before the full-scale clash began, potentially before authorities stepped in amid drowning or stone-throwing incidents.
AMDH explains in detail that they documented the migrants’ experiences at the border. They say police surrounded the group, leaving little chance for escape. After the initial phase, the most shocking moments followed, described as the cruelest, most inhuman and degrading treatment. The account mentions widespread violence with batons, kicks, and stones directed at those lying on the ground, gasping for air, injured, or exhausted.
According to AMDH, dozens of people, some already dead and many more injured, were crowded into a 200-square-meter area at the border gate. Initial victims named by the organization include Kussay Ismail Abdelkader, Mohannad Maamoun Aissa, Abderrahim Abdellatif Ali, and Abdelaaziz Yaakoub, who were among the first identified fatalities.
Morocco’s official version attributes 23 deaths to drowning or a fall from the top of the fence, which authorities described as highly violent. The National Human Rights Council, a government body, reports that autopsies were conducted at the Nador morgue but that further details have not been provided.
Response from authorities
The first ambulances at the border transported bodies rather than stabilizing the wounded, a point of serious concern for AMDH. Over the following hours, the injured were gradually taken to hospitals, but AMDH notes that no assistance was offered to the wounded by either side for almost nine hours. The last ambulance left the area around nine that night, after which no immediate aid was provided at the border, according to the organization.
Starting at four in the afternoon, Moroccan authorities began forcibly deporting many migrants by bus to interior regions, over 800 kilometers away, even for those who were injured. AMDH documented at least one death linked to these repatriation buses, noting a young Sudanese man named Abdenacer Mohamed Ahmed who died later that night after sustaining injuries on the bus.