MADRID (AP) – Something was wrong with the guard inspecting sealed bags of toxic ash in the port of Melilla, one of Spain’s two small territories in North Africa. So he pulled out a knife, cut off the bag, and found one leg motionless, confirming his suspicion that there was a person inside.
He lifted and dropped his leg a few times, without reaction. A few moments passed. Suddenly, his leg withdrew and a young man emerged from the ashes, frightened and disoriented, but alive.
The disturbing scene in a video published on Monday by the Spanish Civil Guard highlighted the great lengths and risks assumed by migrants and asylum seekers in his desperate attempts to reach Europe.
The survivor was one of 41 people found hidden in the middle of cargo in the port area of Melilla on Friday, trying to sneak aboard a ship that would take them across the Mediterranean Sea to the peninsula.
Four of them were discovered buried in recycling bins under glass bottles, some broken with sharp edges.
Surrounded by Morocco, the tiny enclaves of Melilla and nearby Ceuta have been the target of many African migrants for years. But the two territories are left out of the Schengen area of free mobility in much of Europe, so many of them are caught up in their effort to reach European lands.
The port of Melilla, where trucks and containers begin a trip to Spain that can take up to seven hours, allows many to escape. Some try to enter the fenced area of the harbor by swimming or hiding under vehicles, jumping in it when they brake or stop at the harbor gates.
Others try to climb the fences and perimeter walls, sometimes falling and resulting in serious injuries.
With the help of search dogs and microphones to detect heartbeats, police often find people hiding between the load, from containers to cement mixers. This year alone, the Civil Guard has said it has identified 1,781 migrants who went into danger on the security perimeter of the port of Melilla; last year, the figure was 11,700.
Still, discoveries like last week’s are disturbing to more experienced officers.
“We will never get used to it,” said Juan Antonio Martin, a spokesman for the Civil Guard in Melilla.
Because the border between the North African territories of Spain and Morocco is closed since the pandemic began in MarchAccording to the Ministry of the Interior, about 1,500 people crossed Melilla illegally last year, compared to 5,800 in 2019.
But those who tried to leave Melilla last week were already in the enclave, Martin said. They could not catch passenger ferries or flights to reach the peninsula, either because they did not have travel documents or because they entered Spain illegally.
Their nationality was not released, but the spokesman said most were of Moroccan origin.
Although the closure of the land border with Ceuta and Melilla by Morocco came after years of intensifying border security, which had already caused a large drop in illegal crossings, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic ocean have become the main landing point for people fleeing North and West Africa to Europe.
Last year, some 23,000 people arrived in the archipelago, most uprooted by the Spanish Maritime Rescue Service, and more than 500 died or disappeared in the attempt.
And there, too, rescuers sometimes faced the unthinkable. In December, the Spanish newspaper El País reported as a 14-year-old Nigerian boy spent two weeks clinging to the rudder of an oil tanker before being found by a patrol near the port of Las Palmas, on the island of Gran Canaria.
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Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.