On Midsummer, at least 23 migrants died when they tried to cross the border between Morocco and Spain. Spain has turned the migration issue into a security issue and is calling on NATO for help.
About ten a year ago I sat under arrest in a Moroccan police station smoking a strong cigarette.
The place was the town of Nador near the Spanish border and walking on the mountainside was a crime.
Cigarettes were offered by the interrogating police officer, whose colleague had caught me a moment earlier on the way to the Gurugú mountain migrant camp.
Migrants trying to get to Spain would stay there before trying to jump over the border fence. The destination was Melilla, an enclave belonging to Spain on the African coast and at the same time the entire southern border of the EU.
The atmosphere during the interrogations was smoky, but relaxed.
However, the seemingly nice police officer was concerned about what I was doing and seeing. The police were known to destroy camps by burning tents and beating migrants who did not manage to escape.
At Midsummer, there was a limit again in the headlines. At that time, about 2,000 migrants tried to cross it.
Some got there, but dozens died. According to official sources, there were 23 dead, according to human rights organizations, 37.
According to the emigrants’ accounts, some died by falling.
Before watching the videos, the Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez had time to congratulate the Moroccan authorities for their exemplary action.
According to the Caminando Fronteras organization, the injured were not offered first aid even on the Spanish side.
All over Spain, there have been expressions of opinion about the events.
However, no one does asked why Moroccan police attacked migrants trying to leave the country.
It is known that Morocco does not treat people from other parts of Africa particularly warmly.
However, the activities of the Moroccan police are also the border policy of Spain and the EU as a whole.
The reason behind the decision was the concern about the leakage of the border with Morocco. When the distances are in order, Morocco will increase border control in return.
The death of immigrants is an embarrassing thing for Spain.
The events of Midsummer show that in border control the purpose is to sanctify the means, and excesses or even human lives are not avoided.
When in 2014 I was sitting in a smoky police station, a record number of migrants had crossed the border. It was the responsibility of the polite, cigarette-offering Moroccan commissioner to ensure that the same thing did not happen again.
The interrogations ended when the police found no evidence that I had been on the mountain looking at anything other than the scenery.
I got more cigarettes as a snack, a ride to the border and a friendly invitation to leave the country. However, I did not follow that, but instead traveled to a hospital where migrants who had been beaten by the police were treated.
In the hospital, I met the migrants who had camped on Mount Gurugú, who were lying shocked in their beds.
Plastic bottles filled with urine were lined up on the floor of the room. The young people couldn’t go to the bathroom, because their lower limbs had been beaten so they couldn’t move.
This is how the police tried to make sure that they wouldn’t cross the border for a moment.
However, the young people lying in the room were going to try as long as they could.
Years ago the story came vividly to mind at Midsummer.
The tragedy is a reminder that the pressure on the EU’s southern border will grow even more.
In addition to the unrest, climate change and the food shortage caused by the war in Ukraine accelerate the desire to leave sub-Saharan Africa. The Spanish government and the entire EU know that.
At the NATO meeting in Madrid last week, Prime Minister Sánchez called migration a security threat and asked for help from NATO.
At the same time, the agreement turns migration policy into security policy.
The title of an article I wrote almost ten years ago was “The fence doesn’t stop the dream”.
Nor should it extinguish anyone’s life.