Human rights activists from across North Africa have condemned Europe’s migration policy, one year after at least 23 people died trying to cross into the Spanish enclave of Melilla. The Maghreb Social Forum on Migration (FSMM) made their appeal after the group gathered for annual talks in Nador, a northeast Morocco town near the border with Melilla. Around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier on June 24 last year in a bid to reach Spanish territory across one of the European Union’s two land borders with Africa. Thousands of others have perished trying to cross by sea from North Africa to Europe, where there is increasing concern over rising irregular immigration. In the Melilla tragedy, the Moroccan government says some migrants died after falling from the fences, while others suffocated as people panicked and a stampede started.

Source: The North Africa Journal June 26, 2023 15:15 UTC