Shocking video footage has been released showing migrants piled up on the floor surrounded by police in riot gear at a Moroccan border fence after an attempted mass crossing into a Spanish enclave left 23 people dead.
Moroccan authorities said 2,000 migrants tried to burst into Mililla, a Spanish territory in North Africa which is the one of the only EU land borders on the continent, on Friday.
Authorities said some people trying to cross died in the crush, with others were seriously hurt as they fell while trying to scale fences at the border.
Around 100 made it across the frontier, with the Spanish Government saying around 140 Spanish police officers were injured, as were 76 migrants.
Now video released by the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) shows what appears to be dozens of migrants, many motionless and apparently lifeless, piled up at the Barrio Chino Border Checkpoint.
Omar Naji, local head of the AMDH said those in the pile had been left there for hours without medical treatment, leading to a higher death toll – which it claims is 29, higher than the total of 23 given by Moroccan authorities.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the attempt to storm the border ‘an attack on the territorial integrity of our country’, and blamed it on people traffickers.
Read More: Migrants are piled up by a border fence surrounded by riot police in shocking scenes
