The severity of the border fence tragedy of Melilla, the investigation initiated by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ombudsman and the doubts that various NGOs were publicly referring to the media about police action led to the leadership of the Civil Guard to request a specific report to the Melilla Command on the points in question.
The Information Group of the armed institute in the autonomous city sent a 17-page dossier to the general management last November 3. The content of that report, to which EL PERIÓDICO has had accessreviews in detail the four main and most controversial points handled by the opposition to the right and left of the Government and which is continually refuted by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
This Wednesday Marlaska returns to congress, after on Friday the 25th the deputies of the Congressional Interior Commission accessed the Civil Guard videos in a special briefing session and terminated their analysis, leaving more than half of the content unviewed.
1 Bodies in a funnel
In the final stretch of the report, the Melilla Civil Guard addresses the tragic chapter of the events of June 24, denying that there were corpses in the area under Spanish control, an area that, the text underlines, was empty of civil guards.
The avalanche of migrants, says the dossier, was produced “due to the attempt to enter the national territory of a huge mass of people in a narrow placewhich was closed and surrounded by fences & rdquor ;.
The Civil Guard helicopter takes pictures, but, according to the report, “during the period in which the video is being recorded, in the place there were only officials of the Moroccan security forces and bodiesnot having any civil guard in it, since, previously, the Spanish force that was at that point had to withdraw outside the border control area of Barrio Chino due to the casualties suffered (injuries of different categories) due to the strong harassment received by immigrants& rdquor ;.
The report of the Information agents relates: “When an avalanche occurred due to the forcing of the doors, the people trapped are right on the limitrophe line that gives way to the transit area between Morocco and Spain, beginning the action behind the doors, still in Moroccan territory, and staying stuck because of great human pressure right at the border gates & rdquor ;.
The report comments on the images stating: “It is not possible to determine the health status of immigrants only by looking at the video images”, to add: “Regarding the location of the bodies, and again as seen in the images filmed by the Civil Guard, it is possible to affirm that NO -the text emphasizes the word in capital letters and bold- no immobile body was observed in the transit area of the border crossing during the moment of the avalanche, leaving a large part of sub-Saharans stuck in the funnel effect that occurs when the doors are violated & rdquor ;.
In the same chapter, the study speculates -”it is possible& rdquor;, he says- that the gendarmes “in their eviction work& rdquor; they could “in some cases, move immigrants between different areas & rdquor ;.
The description of the events highlights that “when the Spanish forces accessed this compound, the Moroccan forces had already finished the eviction work of the Sub-Saharan immigrants who had been trapped in the avalanche& rdquor ;.
2 Gendarmes in Spanish territory
The aforementioned last chapter talks about Moroccan agents in the transit zone unblocking “the funnel & rdquor; that occurred at the gates of the border area, but it is not the only reference to this point, which is also the focus of the political controversy in Spain.
Another previous chapter talks about why. “The presence of Moroccan security forces and bodies in Spanish territory -says the report- is due solely to the normal police cooperation procedures on the border by both countries & rdquor ;.
The conclusions of the Information Group of the Melilla Command they consider “occasional and isolated & rdquor; the access of gendarmes to “national territory & rdquor; and circumscribes it in the work of “participating in the work of transferring sub-Saharans & rdquor; that have previously been selected by the Civil Guard device for rejection at the border.
The report underlines in bold that the Moroccan gendarmes enter “always to the aid of the Civil Guard agents and occurring, in any case, in collaboration with them& rdquor ;.
3 This is how they rejected at the border
To jump over the roof of the border post, the migrants first had to overcome a concertina fence installed by Morocco, state security sources report. It was the only section that did not yet have the Spanish fence with an inverted comb, less painful. Once overcome, they threw themselves to the ground, entering Spanish territory.
A hundred guards, national and municipal police of Melilla detained 500 migrants between a guardrail on the Melilla ring road, the ML-105 road and the fence itself. In the images of June 24 that the deputies have been able to see, it is observed how a Civil Guard negotiator approaches several times to calm down those who have come down. The Spanish police device creates an arc around the newcomers, trying to prevent them from advancing further into the city. Some run away; others faint, exhausted. And others, after the assault, raise their hands in surrender.
The border rejection process begins. Police practice in Ceuta and Melilla applies it to migrants who have assaulted border facilities and who are still next to the fence or 20 meters at most.
Of the more than 500 Africans who managed to jump, 470 were returned that tragic morning. These are data that the Civil Guard of Melilla has given to the Prosecutor’s Office, the Ombudsman and the deputies. The number does not appear in the report, which focuses on explaining the legal basis of the rejections made, the third main point of the controversy that this week continues to be alive on the political agenda.
In the study of the facts, the Civil Guard of Melilla tells him to the general manager, María Gámez, that the Citizen Security Law establishes in its additional provision X that “they may be rejected in order to prevent their illegal entry into Spain & rdquor; those foreigners who in Ceuta or Melilla “try to overcome the border containment elements to cross irregularly & rdquor ;.
The Melilla guards assure their general management that they acted in accordance with the Law and international treaties, fulfilling, among other mandates, that of assess a serious vulnerability of people before rejecting them. “The non-existence of especially vulnerable people was confirmed,” says the report and adds: “Among those rejected NO (in capital letters) people who were apparently or manifestly minors were detected. No pregnant women were detected. What’s more, no women were detected. No person affected for serious reasons of disability was detected. No elderly people were detected & rdquor ;.
The internal dossier lists all the places that Spanish law indicates as apt to submit an asylum application (Police offices, centers for foreigners, consulates…) and explains that, if rejected migrants were not given an opportunity to request asylum that morning, it was because “the attempt to overcome the border infrastructure is NOT a lauthorized place to submit the application of international protection & rdquor ;.
Later on, he points out a procedure in the assaults on the fence: to establish a migrant delivery point with the gendarmes: “The protocol for rejection at the border is carried out individually and agents of the Civil Guard intervene in it, who extract one or several of them from the group that managed to access national territory, to accompany them to delivery point to the Moroccan police authorities, who lead the migrant to their territory& rdquor ;.
4 Doors closed, room empty
Since the confinement due to the covid was declared, the Chinatown border post between Melilla and Nador remains closed. Before, it was a secondary step for porters of products from Melilla supermarkets.
At dawn, when what the report of the Civil Guard of Melilla described as “the most serious attack in the last fifteen years & rdquor;the crowd of migrants find a closed and empty post.
According to the compilation of facts by the Melilla Information Group, the premises were also empty “several minutes before the doors were broken in & rdquor ;, because “the Spanish force had had to withdraw outside from the border control facility because of the casualties suffered & rdquor ;.
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In the first moments there were guards in the compound, but one he vanished due to a stone blow to the head, and another fell to the ground with “a serious injury to the cheekbone & rdquor ;. The agents pick up the wounded and move away from the fence. “The acting force never had access to the violated security doors during the human avalanche -says the report-, since he was outside the border post when this happened, becoming part of the containment fence moments after the immigrants who managed to cross & rdquor ;.
The account submitted to the direction of the Civil Guard insists on a conclusion that was also sent to the Prosecutor’s Office: the migrants that time went to the border post as a prior objective, not thinking of climbing the fence. “Only a low percentage of sub-Saharan Africans carried a hook of those that on other occasions they have used to get around the fence & rdquor ;, says the report. The Africans did not wear “the usual shoes with handmade nails to be able to climb & rdquor ;.