The Black Book of Ceuta and Melilla

A year ago, the media lights focused on the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, Euro-African frontiers where some migrants were killed for having sought to enter the European Union (cf our article from October 2005, Ceuta et Melilla : L’UE déclare la guerre aux migrants et aux réfugiés).

One year later, although Morocco is no longer the focus of news reports, the situation of exiles and refugees is still as precarious as it was, with their fundamental rights violated on a daily basis. Most of all, the walls and electronic barriers at the Euro-Mediterranean border are increasingly more difficult to cross, and sub-Saharan exiles are forced to employ routes that are always longer and more dangerous : while we know about the arrivals of boat people in the Canary islands, how many daily deaths have there been in the Atlantic Ocean ?

With The black book of Ceuta and Melilla, the Migreurop network seeks to allow the victims of last year’s events to speak, at the same time as placing this repression within the European context of the externalisation of border control policies and policies to deny the right of free movement to the peoples of the South. The 17 deaths of Ceuta and Melilla are, in fact, the most visible consequence of a policy that is being pursued and whose unnamed victims are limited to silence and anonimity.

translated by Statewatch