Melilla: another wall of shame

We live in a world of walls and borders, with wealthier countries increasingly putting up barricades to prevent the entry of migrants and refugees, forced to abandon their country and seek international protection.

In 2014, for example, Europe and what is known as its Schengen Area, erected 315 km of fencing around its borders. The so-called "refugee crisis" of 2015 resulted in a shared political strategy to extend these barriers. They now cover more than 2,000 kilometres. Hence the expression "Fortress Europe".

In Spain, the barriers in Ceuta and Melilla were erected as basic fencing. Today, the border perimeter measuring 11.5 kilometres in Melilla is surrounded by five high fences equipped with sensors or razor wire, and a three-metre ditch. Those who attempt to climb over, and are caught, will be returned without any properly secure legal procedure. In a controversial judgment issued in February 2020, the European Court of Human Rights, followed by the Spanish Constitutional Court in a judgment of November the same year, endorsed the practice known as "hot returns".

To have any chance of success, then, people normally cross over in groups. Unfortunately, this sometimes ends in tragedy, as happened on 24 June 2022. Amnesty International calculated the number killed that day at more than 100 in an attempted crossing via the Chinese Quarter border post in Melilla: events which remain unpunished and covered up. As a result, both this fence and others in Europe have been dubbed the new "walls of shame", a sorry reminder of the famous "wall of shame" in Berlin (1961-1989).

Film:El salto