THERE HAS been no accountability for the “stark dehumanisation” of African migrants after they were brutally massacred trying to reach Spain from Morocco in June, independent United Nations experts have said.

Almost 2,000 Sudanese nationals were attempting to start a new life in Europe and tried to pass through the Spanish enclave in Melilla on June 24 this year. 

However, many died while trying to scale a fence which eventually collapsed on them and others are understood to have perished from injuries caused by border guards. It was marked as one of the deadliest migrant crossings in modern times. 

UN experts said in a statement: “It is alarming there is still no concrete accountability months after dozens of migrants of African descent, including refugees and asylum seekers, died during violent encounters with border security forces in Melilla, Spain.”

At the time of the devastating loss of life, it was understood that 23 people had died, but that recently the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia said the total was understood to now be at 37 lives lost. 

Human rights activists decried the catastrophic loss of life as “racist” and fuelled the dangerous reality of black people trying to make new lives in Europe. 

Speaking about the massacre, UN experts – who were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council – said: “And dozens more were injured because of the excessive and lethal use of force by Moroccan and Spanish law enforcement authorities.

“The violence documented in videos of the scenes at Melilla’s gate tragically reveals the status quo of the European Union’s borders, namely racialized exclusion and deadly violence deployed to keep out people of African and Middle Eastern descent, and other non-white populations.”

The experts blasted how the migrants were being pushed back as they attempted to make the crossing because it was “irrespective of their rights under international refugee or international human rights law.”

They went on to condemn the continuing lack of accountability for the “stark dehumanisation of African migrants at the perimeter of Europe”.

The Spanish and Moroccan governments had replied to concerns sent by the experts in July, but they warned that there are no signs of real accountability from the countries and said the whole of Europe needed to take heed of the massacre. 

They added: “Thorough investigation, reparations to victims and their families, as well as the guarantee of non-repetition are required under international human rights law,” they said.

“The events in Melilla, as well as the many other incidences of border violence and death, point to a willingness to sacrifice the lives of African and other migrants and refugees to secure the perimeter of Europe.

“Dead bodies are a seemingly tolerable feature of the borders of countries that ostensibly committed to human rights as a universal project.”