Morocco Blocks EU Lawmakers Probing Deadly Migrant Incident at Melilla Border

Spanish MEP Miguel Urbán, from the Anticapitalistas party, and his German colleague Cornelia Ernst, from the Die Linke party, denounced on Tuesday the attitude of the Moroccan authorities who prevented them from entering the kingdom from Melilla. In a press release, Urbán indicated that they were a total of 16 people, including members of NGOs and European lawyers, who were denied "without any explanation" access to Morocco in order to conduct an investigation into the migrant assault that occurred in Melilla on June 24.

The delegation intended to go to the hospital in Nador, Morocco, where some of the migrants injured on June 24 were treated. They also planned to hold a meeting in Rabat with the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), and to meet with journalists in Casablanca as well as "several migrants who survived". This attitude of Morocco proves its "manifest willingness to hide the murders of the 23 migrants on June 24, as well as the 76 injured and those who were arrested," denounces the Spanish MEP.

"This is a totally unacceptable situation, because the Moroccan government intends to try in the coming days some of the migrants arrested on June 24 during the Melilla assault, a trial which is a complete farce," added Urbán, calling on the European Parliament and the Spanish government to "speak out on the subject". He also invited the two entities to facilitate the appearance before the European Parliament of the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who in July requested "to investigate what happened".

In a video posted on Twitter, the German MEP Ernst considers what happened as "a great scandal", as she received no explanation from the Moroccan authorities.