The Court of appeals in Morocco increased the sentences of 13 migrants by six months to three years over a deadly attempted crossing into the Spanish enclave of Melilla, their lawyer said on Monday (Jan. 09).
The court in Nador, a northeastern town near the border with Melilla, “increased the sentences of a group of migrants by six months, taking them to three years in prison each”, lawyer Mbarek Bouirig revealed.
Around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese stormed the border aimed to reach Spanish territory across one of the European Union’s two land borders with Africa. In the action, 23 people died.
The rights group Amnesty International said at least 37 people lost their lives, while Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) put the number of dead at 27.