Melilla suffered a mass assault on its border fences with around 2,500 immigrants simultaneously hitting the fences on Wedneday.
The following day, yesterday, 350 immigrants managed to breach the border fences and flood into the enclave city. This second assault took place at 07.25h yesterday between the border passes Barrio Chino and Beni-Enzar; the same area as the Wednesday assault.
Many immigrants became stuck between the outer and inner fences, whilst others remained at the top of the outer fence.
In both cases the police carried out many ‘hot turn rounds; i.e., where the immigrants were immediately returned through pedestrians gates where the Moroccan gendarmerie, not known for their kindness, were waiting for them.
The ones that did get through ran down the streets directly to the immigrant holding centre where there were 491 immigrants from Wednesday’s breech.
On Wednesday night (the assault had taken place during the morning) the Guardia Civil, which mans the border fences, saw that around 4,000 Sub-Saharans were congregating on the Moroccan side, not far from the fence with the apparent intention of repeating the mass-breech tactic the following day, so this time the police were forewarned.
When the attack on the fence did come, they came throwing stones and carrying sticks to keep the police from intervening. Consequently four officers were injured.
Although the Spanish PM, Pedro Sánchez, expressed his solidarity and support for the Guardia Civil, it did not silence the complaints about the lack of material and human resources in the enclave city of Melilla for controlling Europe’s African border.
Editorial comment: there is a certain double standard that is evident in that just about every European country is giving immediate shelter to Ukrainian refugees from the war taking place in their country, but immigrants coming from countries that are also riven by conflict have to fight their way through a double-fence border protection to get in. It would be cheap to suggest that some are white whilst the others are black yet there does appear to be a double standard.
(News: Melilla)
Alas teas the same for Africans and Indians fleeing Ukraine…… there were not automatically let into neighbouring countries…… racist at best, inhumane at worst
It’s more a case of us vs them. And, coincidentally, ‘us’ is white. Ukraine is Europe and thus ‘us’. It’s 100% normal human behaviour. All societies and cultures do this. We all have a concept of ‘us’. Russian refugees, although white, would not be treated that well.
Hi Martin, I´m very happy with your editorial comment. You´re absolutely right about the double standard of the Europeans towards different refugees and migrants. Thank you