On March 15, 21 people in distress were rescued, safely brought to the Alboran Island and subsequently transferred to Melilla by Salvamento Marítimo. On March 9, 16 people stranded on Alboran to be safely taken back to mainland in Motril three days later.
On March 13, the Spanish ombudsman closed his investigation into the deadly tragedythat took place last year on June 24 when dozens of migrants were killed by Moroccan security forces at the border between the city of Nador and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. According to what was reported by El País, the ombudsman concluded that the 470 deportations from Melilla back to Morocco that were carried out that day, when more than 1700 migrants attempted crossing the border, were illegal. Migrants were returned through accelerated procedures and, once in Morocco, brutally beaten up by Moroccan security forces, according to the videos and the testimonies released by the survivors. On March 22, Spanish Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska appeared before the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament to provide explanations and shed light on the event. Grande-Marlaska denied any responsibility for the death of the 23 migrants who tried to cross the border between Morocco and Melilla last June, insisting that no death had taken place on Spanish soil. On September 21, during an appearance before the Spanish deputies, Grande-Marlaska had defended the action of the police against what he had then described as a “violent aggression”.
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