25 people, including a teenager and four babies, have died in a shipwreck that occurred last Sunday on the Moroccan coast of Akhfennir, as confirmed by the NGO Walking Borders, which has visited the morgue and is in contact with loved ones of the disappeared. . The boat, in which 53 migrants were travelling, collapsed in a rocky area near Morocco.
The NGO has carried out a preliminary identification of the bodies of some of the deceased, but the organization denounces that the Moroccan authorities have ordered the rapid burial of all the bodies without the relatives being able to confirm their identity. Nine bodies have remained in the sea, reports the organization.
Among the people provisionally identified by the organization is a Guinean woman, who was traveling with her passport. “The family had stated that they wanted to identify and repatriate the body, so they do not allow the family to take the body,” says Helena Maleno, founder of the collective. “We were making arrangements with the relatives of the deceased to officially identify the bodies, although a pre-identification had been made through the survivors,” says the activist, expressing her concern at the rapid exhumation.
Among the deceased there was also a Moroccan man, identified by the NGO, and a 13-year-old Moroccan teenager, according to Caminando Fronteras. “It’s not the first time they’ve done it. We have already seen shipwrecks with many bodies buried in less than 24 hours. We are worried, it is a terrible tragedy. All the children have died. And the babies’ moms have died. There are victims, Moroccans and sub-Saharans, who had many possibilities of being identified”, says Maleno, who highlights the increase in pain caused by any family not being able to confirm the death of their loved ones or being able to carry out the corresponding rites.
“One of the bodies of the unidentified bodies is that of the 13-year-old teenager. She was Moroccan. The pain of the family is terrible. We do not know if she was traveling with her mother, ”explains the activist. “Not only is she harming her right to life, but families are also being harmed after her relatives have died. It’s one victimization after another.”
According to the latest report by the NGO Walking Borders, 978 people have died trying to reach Spain in the first half of the year, an average of five a day. Of these, 938 people have died or disappeared at sea and another 40 died at the Melilla fence. A total of 18 boats have disappeared with all their occupants and 118 women and 41 children have lost their lives at sea. Of the total number of victims, 88% remain unidentified, reports Europa Press.
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