The death toll keeps rising.

Moroccan and Spanish human rights activists report that 27 migrants died on Friday trying to cross the border fence into the Spanish North African exclave of Melilla.

In addition, two Moroccan police officers were killed, for which there was initially no official confirmation.

More than 300 people were injured.

There had never been so many dead in an attack on one of the two Spanish North African exclaves.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

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About 2,000 migrants had tried – some with great brutality – to make their way to Spain, where 133 made it.

According to press reports, most of them were Sudanese, who had often waited for months in the inaccessible mountains east of Melilla for these days.

They had equipped themselves with self-made knives, sticks, hammers and stones, as well as hooks to climb the fence.

They stormed the least protected point of the twelve kilometer long and six meter high barrier.

It is therefore also called "the sieve".

16 Spanish police officers faced 500 men

There, 16 Spanish police officers faced 500 young men on Friday morning.

Police unionists accuse the government in Madrid of not having kept its promises.

After the biggest rush to date on the border in Melilla in March, the fortifications should be strengthened and more police stationed in the exclave.

In four days at the beginning of March there were thousands, of whom 800 made it to Spain.

There have not been similarly high numbers since May 2021, when almost 10,000 Moroccans came to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta;

the Moroccan border police had not stopped them at the time.

Sánchez praises Morocco

After Spain and Morocco reconciled at the end of March after a long and heated dispute over Western Sahara, this time the Moroccan security forces intervened massively.

Apparently they had been warned in time and had received reinforcements from other parts of the country.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez praised the "great efforts and the extraordinary cooperation";

Morocco has proven to be a “strategic ally” in the fight against the “human trafficking mafia”.

However, human rights activists have criticized the actions of the security forces and are calling for an independent investigation.

EU-funded security cooperation between Morocco and Spain "is killing people," said a joint statement by five Spanish and Moroccan human rights groups on Saturday.

The Moroccan human rights organization AMDH circulated a video showing dozens of allegedly seriously injured migrants lying handcuffed on the ground in police custody for hours.

On Saturday, the group reported that at least 15 Africans had been thrown into a mass grave without clarifying how and by whom they died.

The Spanish organization "Caminando Fronteras" accused Sánchez of having become an "accomplice in the tragedy" by praising the Moroccans.

Almost 13,000 migrants have arrived in Spain since the beginning of the year, around 15 percent more than in the previous year.