Teen migrant files UN lawsuit for torture at Moroccan enclave
A survivor of a deadly migrant altercation in Ceuta claims that over 10 years ago, Spanish police tortured him during a pushback operation against migrants from Morocco reports the New Arab and agencies.
The survivor has filed a complaint with the United Nations against Spain for torture, a decade after the incident occurred, said a rights group on the 31st of January.
In 2014, an unaccompanied migrant from Cameroon, who was just 15 years old at the time, tried to enter the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta. He claims he was beaten and tear-gassed by Guardia Civil officers as he struggled between the sea wall border between Morocco and the Spanish enclave.
He was then apprehended and expelled to Morocco and now lives in Germany, where the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is based.
According to other survivors’ testimonies, the Spanish Civil Guard police fired rubber bullets in the direction of the migrants, puncturing the buoys they were clinging to, though Spanish authorities have only admitted to firing rubber bullets in the air as a warning.
At least 15 other migrants drowned on the 6th of February 2014 while trying to reach Tarajal beach on Ceuta’s south side from neighboring Morocco.
“There is still no truth, no justice, the families have not been compensated and therefore there is no guarantee of non-repetition,” said Elena Munoz of the Spanish Commission for Aid to Refugees, a non-governmental organization also known by its Spanish acronym CEAR.
The ECCHR filed a complaint with the UN Committee Against Torture on behalf of one of the survivors after the Spanish Supreme Court shelved the case in 2022.
Though Sixteen Civil Guard officers were charged over the incident, the case was shelved due to lack of evidence after several lower courts had opened and closed the case.
“The UN must insist that Spain re-opens its investigation into the Tarajal events and that it brings impunity to an end,” said the Berlin-based rights group’s lawyer, Carsten Gericke.
Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish territories on the northern Moroccan coast, are the European Union’s only land borders on the African continent and are frequently the target of migrants hoping to reach mainland Europe.
New Arab and Agencies.
