MADRID (AP) – Something seemed wrong to the guard who was inspecting sealed bags of toxic ash at the port of Melilla, one of Spain’s two small territories in North Africa. Then he pulled out a knife, opened the bag and found an immobile leg, confirming his suspicion that someone was inside.
He got up and dropped his leg a few times, without reaction. A few moments passed. Suddenly, the leg receded and a young man emerged from the ashes – scared and disoriented, but alive.
The disturbing scene in a video released Monday by the Spanish Civil Guard highlighted the great distances and risks that migrants and asylum seekers face in their desperate attempts to reach Europe.
The survivor was among 41 people found hidden amid cargo in the Melilla port area on Friday, trying to sneak on board a ship that would take them across the Mediterranean Sea to mainland Spain.
Four of them were found buried in recycling containers under glass bottles, some broken with sharp points.
Surrounded by Morocco, the tiny enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta have been the target of many African migrants for years. But the two territories are outside the free-mobility Schengen area in much of Europe, so many of them are stuck in their efforts to reach European soil.
The port of Melilla, where trucks and containers begin a journey to Spain that can take up to seven hours, offers many ways to escape. Some try to enter the fenced-in area of the port by swimming there or hiding under vehicles, jumping over them when they slow down or stop at the port gates.
Others try to climb the perimeter fences and walls, sometimes falling and being seriously injured.
With the help of search dogs and microphones to detect heartbeats, the police often find people hiding in the middle of the cargo, from containers to concrete mixers. This year alone, the Civil Guard said it had identified 1,781 migrants invading the security perimeter of the port of Melilla; last year, the number was 11,700.
Still, discoveries like last week’s are unsettling for more experienced police officers.
“We will never get used to it,” said Juan Antonio Martín, a spokesman for the Civil Guard in Melilla.
Because the border between the Spanish territories of North Africa and Morocco has been closed since the pandemic began in March, it is more difficult for migrants to enter. According to Spain’s Interior Ministry, almost 1,500 people illegally crossed the border to Melilla last year, up from more than 5,800 in 2019.
But those who tried to leave Melilla last week were already in the enclave, said Martín. They were unable to take passenger boats or flights to reach the continent, 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.
While the closure of the land border with Ceuta and Melilla by Morocco came in the wake of years of intensified border security, which had already led to a large reduction in illegal crossings, the Spanish Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean emerged as the main point of landing for people fleeing North and West Africa to Europe.
Last year, some 23,000 people arrived on the archipelago, most of them taken from the waters by Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service, and more than 500 died or disappeared in the attempt.
And there, too, rescuers sometimes face the unthinkable. In December, the Spanish newspaper El País reported how a 14-year-old from Nigeria spent two weeks at the helm of an oil tanker before being found by a patrol boat near the port of Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria.
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Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.