This is the shocking moment a Spanish Civil Guard police boat runs over a migrant dinghy, sending its occupants flying into the water.
In a video taken on Horcas Coloradas beach on Sunday in Melilla, Spain, a small motorboat said to be carrying four African migrants – including a girl – can be seen being pursued by a border vessel.
After refusing to comply with warnings from the Royal Marine Gendarmerie patrol to stop, the Spanish Civil Guard motorboat veers to the right, driving over the top of the dinghy.
It causes the migrants’ boat to capsize, throwing at least one person into the sea. The Government Delegation in Melilla – a Spanish enclave of Melilla in northern Morocco – has since confirmed no one was injured, RTVE Noticias reports.
Local reports suggest the migrants were attempting to travel from Morocco to Melilla.
Footage shows the moment a Spanish Civil Guard police boat races after a migrant boat
As the migrant dinghy – carrying four occupants – turns, the border vessel matches its movements
The Spanish Civil Guard boat can then be seen driving over the top of the small motorboat
Melilla and Ceuta, Spain’s other tiny North African enclave, have the European Union’s only land borders with Africa, making them a magnet for migrants
A Moroccan NGO has already requested an investigation, while the Melilla government delegation maintained the Civil Guard carried out a ‘normal procedure’ to prevent the arrival of migrants to the coast.
It comes after dozens of sunbathing tourists watched in shock as 20 suspected migrants disembarked from a dinghy onto a packed beach in the Spanish islands earlier this month.
The vessel pulled into the cove and stopped on the shoreline in Cala Gran Santanyí, Mallorca, Spain, on Tuesday around 6pm.
Video shared on social media shows how roughly 20 people – mostly young men – got off the boat and dodged beach towels as they walked in single file across the sand.
The Ministry of the Interior for Spain has also decided not to launch an internal investigation into the boating incident, Public report, which has been widely criticised by left-wing political parties EH Bildu and Sumar.
The maneuver by the border patrol sends at least one of the small boat’s occupants flying into the air
One of the migrants, who are believed to have been travelling from Morocco, can be seen crashing into the water
The Melilla government delegation has confirmed that no one was injured
The Interior Ministry has confirmed the four occupants of the boat have already been returned to Morocco.
Sumar’s deputy spokesperso Aina Vidal described the incident as a ‘human disaster’ and ‘unacceptable tragedy’.
‘The disaster we have seen in Melilla is totally unacceptable, it is unacceptable, it is a human disaster and, as such, we are undoubtedly waiting for explanations from the competent minister,’ he said.
In 2022, a migrant made history by becoming the first documented person to paraglide across Spain’s southern border with Morocco and make it onto European soil.
Two locals driving along the double fence inside Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla filmed the astonishing scene before calling police.
But the unidentified migrant had fled by the time officers arrived and had yet to be found.
In the same year at least 24 people died in a human stampede as migrants tried to scale the enclave’s heavily-fortified border fence. .
Many undocumented migrants who reach Melilla come from as far afield as Sudan and use it as a stepping stone to get to the European mainland after being transferred from crowded temporary stay centres.
The heavily-guarded Melilla-Morocco border is one of only two land borders between the EU and an African country. The other is Ceuta which is also a Spanish enclave.
The two parallel border fences in Melilla by the road the paraglider was filmed crossing are between 20 and 32 feet high and 7.5 miles long.
Previous attempts by migrants to get into the Spanish enclave have seen them hide inside car bumpers and specially-adapted spaces under passenger seats of vehicles.
They have also risked their lives by using lorry tyres to try to cross by sea.
