Hello,
i send a short summery of a conversation we had in morocco with a group of camerounese migrants in morocco. Four of them arrived ceuta the 6th of february when the spanish guardia civil atacked and killed around 17 persons.
Source is known to the blogger http://luc-schrijvers.blogspot.com
In the early morning of the 6th of February in Castillago/Fnideq, next to the border of Ceuta, a group of 400 migrants, mostly Camerounese, achieved to swim around the fence which seperates Ceuta from Morocco and entered into Spanish water, though they were being attacked by Moroccan police. The Guardia Civil attacked the migrants when they arrived at the brigde in front of the gate to Ceuta, at a point where they were still in Morocco. The Guardia Civil also had a small boat with a Spanish flag from which they were pumping teargas into the water, hitting the people with sticks and driving over the people who were swimming.
They shot rubber bullets directly at people. There was 2 Guardia Civil officers for every gun to be able to shoot and reload faster. They shot at people on both sides of the fences, people in the water, people who were very close, and they also shot at the floating implements that some people needed because they could not swim, which caused several people to drown.
Amarou was one of the first persons who arrived in Spanish water, and he told that there was already dead people on the Morrocan ground and in the water because of the rubber bullets shooting and teargas attacks by the Guardia Civil officers on the boat. Some migrants were swimming along the Spanish coast to get out of the water further down were the Guardia Civil was not attacking. Others went back because of the violence. There was a mass panic in the water when hundreds of people tried to reach the Spanish side while others were trying to escape the bullets and the teargas from the Guardia Civil. The boat of the Guardia Civil drove over the people in the sea. Officially 17 people are announced to be dead. Ibraim, Noir, Patrick and Amarou, who all survived the attacks, tell that more than 25 people died. There are still many people missing.
About 200 migrants arrived at the beach of Ceuta. They were imediatly caught by the Spanish police and the Guardia Civil. The Guardia Civil pushed them back straight away, illegally, through a small gate in the fence around Ceuta. All the people were deported back to Morocco without any comment; they were not asked any questions, there was no registration or verifying of international protection.
On the Moroccan side all the migrants were arrested by Moroccan authorities. They were brought to the police station in Tetouan and from there deported to different parts of Morocco. Because of conflicts between Morocco and Algeria they are not anymore deporting to Oujda in big numbers as they used to, but instead to Rabat, Fes and other regions.
There is a long chain of financing the war against migrants: Europe gives money to Spain to prevent the migration, Spain is paying Morocco and the Moroccan authorities are paiying poor civil Moroccans to fight against Sub Saharan people who are searching for their right to freedom of movement, to cross the border.
Migrants in Morocco tell that the most brutal authorities is the so called force auxiliar who is trying to prevent people from entering Europe. Another very scary, inofficial repression force is the so called clochards, people with a very low status in Morocco who are armed with knifes and sticks to attack migrants who are on their way to the border. Finally there is the Morrocan police who is officially doing the bloody job of stoping and killing migrating people on their way to Europe. Migrating people report that the Moroccan police receives money for each set of fingerprints they send to Europe. After direct pushbacks migrants report about the Guardia Civil giving money in cash to Moroccan police.
This informations are results of a conversation between a group of Camerounese migrants in Morocco, w2eu and nobordersmorocco on saturday, 22nd of February in Morocco.