Morocco hands migrants more jail time over Melilla tragedy — lawyer

RABAT — A Moroccan appeals court has increased the prison sentences of eight migrants over a deadly attempted crossing into the Spanish enclave of Melilla, their lawyer said on Tuesday.

Around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier on June 24 in a bid to reach Spanish territory across one of the European Union's two land borders with Africa. At least 23 people died.

The court in Nador, a north-eastern town near the border with Melilla, "increased on Monday evening the sentences of three migrants to four years in prison, and three years for five others", lawyer Mbarek Bouirig said.

The charges against them include illegal entry to Morocco, "disobedience" and "damaging public property", he told AFP.

The three defendants given a four-year term had initially been sentenced to three years behind bars, and the five others to two and a half years.

The appeals court upheld the two-and-a-half-year sentences of seven more defendants in the same case, Bouirig said.

Moroccan authorities said 23 undocumented migrants died in the June incident, the worst death toll in years of such attempted crossings.

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights put the number of dead at 27, while Amnesty International said at least 37 people lost their lives.

According to the authorities, 140 Moroccan police officers were injured.

Morocco has since handed dozens of migrants sentences of up to four years' imprisonment, with many receiving harsher sentences upon appeal.

Bouirig called on the judiciary to reduce their sentences, urging "consideration of their status as asylum seekers".

Melilla and its sister enclave of Ceuta have long been a magnet for those desperate to escape grinding poverty and hunger.

Both Morocco and Spain have insisted the migrants were to blame for the tragedy, with Rabat saying some died after falling while trying to scramble over the fence, while others suffocated as people panicked and a stampede started.