RABAT — A
Moroccan appeals court has sentenced 12 Sudanese migrants to three years in
jail over violence in the run-up to a June 24 border tragedy in which two dozen
migrants died, a rights group said Friday.
اضافة اعلان
Around 2,000
people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier on June 24 in an attempt to
reach Spanish territory across one of the EU’s two land borders with Africa.
Rights groups have
accused both Moroccan and Spanish security forces of responding with excessive
force, leaving at least 23 migrants dead, the worst toll in years of such
attempted crossings.
The
AMDH human rights group said the 12 migrants would be jailed for three years without
parole after being prosecuted for “illegal entry onto Moroccan soil” and
“violence against law enforcement officers”.
“It’s a very harsh
and unexpected sentence, given that they had initially been sentenced to 11
months in prison,” said Omar Naji of AMDH in the border town of Nador.
The June 24
tragedy followed days of clashes between Moroccan security forces in a forest
near Melilla where migrants often spend months living rough before attempting
to cross the heavily fortified barrier.
Naji said the 12
had been arrested in one of the clashes, six days before the border incident.
Since the tragedy,
Morocco has sentenced dozens of migrants to prison terms of up to two and a
half years on charges including illegal entry and belonging to criminal gangs.
The Spanish enclaves of
Melilla and Ceuta have long been a magnet for people fleeing violence and
poverty across Africa to seek refuge in Europe.
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