Paraglider crosses border between Morocco and Spain | Refugees Information
The person crossed into Melilla, a Spanish enclave 1000’s of migrants and refugees have tried to cross into.
An individual has paraglided from Morocco over a border fence into Melilla and eluded authorities, officers within the Spanish North African enclave have stated.
Two witnesses noticed the paraglider drifting overhead whereas they had been driving alongside the ring highway surrounding the enclave and alerted police at 6:15pm (17:15 GMT), the Spanish authorities’s consultant in Melilla stated in a press release on Thursday.
“Patrols instantly headed to the world, however had been unable to find the migrant,” the assertion added.
Footage obtained by native newspaper El Faro seems to indicate an individual harnessed to a paragliding cover touchdown close to the highway that runs alongside two parallel border fences, which vary between six metres (20 ft) and 10 metres in peak and are 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) lengthy.
The video’s authenticity has not been verified.
Melilla is one of the main entry points for migrants and refugees searching for to cross into European territory from Morocco. At the least 1,155 of what the Spanish authorities termed undocumented migrants have crossed the land border this 12 months till October 15, in line with Spanish inside ministry knowledge.
The closely guarded border is certainly one of solely two borders between the European Union and an African nation, the opposite being Ceuta, additionally a Spanish enclave.
It was the positioning of a fatal mass crossing attempt in June, when as much as 2,000 individuals crossed the fence and had been confronted by border officers.
Morocco’s state-backed Nationwide Human Rights Council stated on the time that at the least 23 of the individuals who died had seemingly “suffocated”.
The Spanish human rights group Caminando Fronteras stated that as many as 37 individuals had misplaced their lives.
In July, the European Fee stated that it might step up its work with Morocco to battle human smugglers who it described as utilizing “new, extraordinarily violent strategies”.
