February 6th, 2024 - Tenth Anniversary

On February 6th, 2014, more than 200 people from the Moroccan coast tried to swim at Tarajal beach in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. To prevent them from arriving in Spanish territory, the Civil Guard used anti-riot equipment. However, the Moroccan soldiers present did not rescue the people who drowned in front of them. Fifteen bodies were discovered on the Spanish side, dozens more disappeared, the survivors were expelled, and some died on the Moroccan side.

Ten years have passed since the Tarajal massacre.

Ten years during which the number of dead and missing has steadily increased, in the Mediterranean and on the Canary Islands route, in the internal borders of the EU, on the Channel, on the eastern borders, along the Balkan route, and again in the Sahara desert and along any other mobility trajectory. The border regime showed its cynical side again in 2023 in a totally uninhibited way, during the sinking of Cutro, when the night of 25 February 94 people died and at least 11 others disappeared a few meters from the Italian coast, under the motionless gaze of Frontex and the Italian authorities, again on June 14 when more than 600 people disappeared forever off Pylos, Greece and just like on April 23, 2022, when a boat with 90 people on board sank off the Lebanese coast.

For ten years now, associations, families, and all those who advocate for the right to mobility for all have continued to demand truth and justice for these victims, to highlight the direct and indirect responsibilities of the border regime, to work to prove these responsibilities and to support families and loved ones in the painful search for the missing and the identification of victims.

On the tenth anniversary of the massacre in Tarajal, we repeat the appeal that was initiated last year, with the expectation that more organizations, associations, families, and activists take part in the decentralized CommémorActions process that takes place every year on February 6th, to make the transnational mobilization more visible in public space and federate a greater number of people.

We ask all social and political organizations, secular and religious groups, families of migrants’ victims, and citizens of all countries of the world to organize actions of protest and awareness of this situation on February 6, 2024.

We invite you to use the logo above, as well as your own logos, as an element to highlight the link between all the different initiatives. All the events that will take place can be published on the group and on the Facebook page ’Commemor-Action’.

Migrate to live, not to die! These are people, not numbers!
Freedom of movement for all!