“In support of the data collected as part of institutional coordination on rumors spread via social networks reporting the death of three would-be immigrants in an attempt to cross the barrier at Sebta on April 14, it turns out that the information published is devoid of truth”, said the DIDH in a statement.
To inform the public opinion, the DIDH reports an “influx on April 14 to the locality of Belyounech (prefecture of M’dieq Fnideq) of about 350 would-be immigrants from the sub-Saharan region with the intention of crossing the barrier erected at the level of the occupied enclave of Sebta, which required an intervention of public authorities that resulted in the arrest of 200 people”.
“During this security operation, law enforcement agents were attacked by illegal migrants in the vicinity and targeted by stone throwing. As a result, 19 people were injured, four of them seriously, among the Auxiliary Forces and the Royal Armed Forces (FAR)”, the statement added.
The same source noted that the authorities concerned, anxious to ensure the right of access to care and medical treatment, evacuated the injured among the would-be immigrants to the hospital to receive the necessary care while the health of three of them required the extension of their hospitalization, two at the Provincial Hospital Center (CHP) of Tetouan and another person at the CHP of Tangier, and who are now recovered. It indicated that members of the Regional Commission of Human Rights in Tangier visited one of these three hospitalized people.
The DIDH stressed that “no deaths have occurred among the would-be immigrants during the intervention of law enforcement agents. The reports to the contrary are unfounded and are in fact lies invented to harm and sow doubt”.
Accordingly, the statement said that “the defamatory allegations made by some parties will not affect the efforts made by our country in the framework of its migration policy, in line with its regional leadership and its approach to safe, organized and regular migration and in support of a vision of development based on partnership, cooperation, solidarity as well as the will to make migrants a lever for development and a guarantee of stability”.
It concluded that “the respect by Morocco of its international commitments represents, indeed, a significant fact on the way of the valorization of the assets of the national experience and the enshrinement of the good national practices inherent to it as it was noted on the occasion of the examination of the 2nd national periodic report relating to the implementation of the convention on the protection of all migrant workers and members of their families”.
