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At the border it’s hell, between life and death
The main respondent is a 19 year old man from Guinea Conakry who arrived in Ceuta at the end of October 2024 after multiple attempts to cross the border, he decided to stop counting after the fourteen’s attempt. He spent a lot of time in Jabal Moussa, the forest near the Moroccan town of BelYounes where most sub-saharan people wanting to reach the Spanish enclave hide and prepare to try jumping the triple fence. Police officers come to patrol there every day, either in the morning or at the end of the day. If they see people, they chase them, and if they catch them, they deport them. “There are people who die at Jabal Moussa—2 or 3 people have died there—because when the police come, they get scared, start running, don’t know where to go. There are rocks, and some slip, fall, and break their legs, their arms, and others die.” “A guy from Guinea died in Jabal Moussa because he was new. The police chased him and he was scared, he didn’t know Jabal Moussa well. There are lots of rocks, he slipped and fell, they took him to the hospital, but he didn’t survive.”
Jbel Moussa Forest
Out of his multiple attempts, 4 times the respondent succeeded to reach the Spanish side of the fence but was caught by the Guardia Civil (Spanish military corp functioning under the remit of the Ministry of Interior and Defense) and handed over to the Moroccan police. “Once I reached the road, a woman from the Guardia Civil saw me, she had gas and told me that if I ran she would release the gas, I didn’t run and she sent me back to Morocco.”He explains that the Guardia Civil are equipped with gas and batons which they use to beat people who try running. When the Guardia civil caught him they tied him up and handed him over to the Moroccan police who then beat his head. He also recalls the day of Eid el-Adha when he went to the ‘forêt’ with his friends, they all got caught except him. “I crossed the 3 meters [fence], I set off to catch the 7 meters, once there the Guardia Civil pointed its laser at me, the [moroccan] police went to look for me and I ran. It was 3:00-4:00 in the morning.” When the Moroccan police found him, he was slapped by the police chief and they put a plastic over him so he wouldn’t run and left him tied up in a car all night long, until 4pm the following day. The young man describes the Moroccan police’s mode of action when they catch people in the forest or trying to jump the fence. They first tell them to stop running, and if they don’t, they chase them with dogs and beat them. Then, they sometimes remove their shoes so they can no longer run and confiscate their belongings such as food, phone and money. He also recounts being forced to work before being imprisoned for around 7 hours (depending if there is enough people arrested to fill a bus) and suffering torture during detention. They are not allowed to go to the toilets, the food is neither good nor sufficient as they’re only given one bread and two cheeses and the officers give them their phones back only once they arrive in the moroccan city they’re deported to, but not the money. People on the move are also forced to give their fingerprints in the police station and sign a paper for their deportation to far away cities in desertic regions of Morocco such as Errachidia, Beni Milan or Youssoufia. The respondent slept many times at the police station on the moroccan border after failed attempts to cross the fences, he recounts the day that marked him the most: “when I arrived at Jbel Musa it was raining a lot so I decided to leave (to the border), once I arrived at the 3 meters on the Moroccan side, I found the police there, they caught me at 5am, it was raining a lot, I slept outside without clothes, barefoot, until morning. When it rains people don’t come to the forest so I stayed all day with my wet clothes and without shoes, I got sick. Then some people came, 7 or 8, there were 9 of us, they took us to a post, they locked us up until there were about twenty of us so the bus would leave. I spent the night there, it was so wet inside, they gave me a plastic to put on me but it was also wet, I stayed there for 2 days. When I think about this day I want to cry, what I went through is what makes me stronger”.
The 7-meter-high double Spanish fence
The journey from Tangier to Errachidia lasts 7 hours and the bus is escorted by many police cars, “as if you were prisoners”. “If 15 people get on, they’ll load 10 or 11 police officers on the bus, plus 4 or 5 police cars escorting it.” The police violence continues during the journey as the respondent relates being insulted “kahlouch” (a racial slur meaning “niger”) and told that he’s not a muslim as there are no Black Muslims. “And yet we’re all human beings. Whether I’m Muslim or not, they shouldn’t treat me like that.” On the bus the security also shouts at people to stay calm and don’t push against the windows, “when they tell you to shut up and you don’t, they hit you with batons. There are people on the bus who are injured.” Once he arrived in Errachidia, he was left to fend for himself as “They drop you off there without any food, without giving you anything”. He slept on the street for three days without being able to change clothes, trying to find work so he could afford a bus to Marrakech and then to Rabat. “People think you’re crazy—when they see you without proper clothes, without shoes, they see you as a criminal. It really hurts inside.”“Life as a migrant in Morocco is hell” “What I experienced in Morocco is something I can’t forget for the rest of my life, the way they treated me at the borders I will never forget for the rest of my life”.”I am grateful to the people who supported me, both near and far, during the darkest times of my life. I thank my parents, even though they never accepted that I went on this journey. Thank you to those who listened to me during my interview, and to NNK.In life, you should never give up—where there is life, there is hope. We will become who we are meant to be. Djella and Alpha are gone, but their souls are eternal.”
overview
between 15 and 40 people ,
from Guinea, Soudan, Ivory Coast, Mali,