Rabat, Jan: Three children of a Nigerian migrant died in Morocco in a fire at their makeshift shelter near the North African country’s border with a Spanish enclave, a non-governmental organization said.
“The mother lit a fire within the confines of their shelter to warm her children, who then died Monday morning asphyxiated and charred by the fire that took hold in their makeshift tent,”; said Mohamed Amin Abidar, president of the local division of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH).
They had set up a temporary home in the wooded northwestern Gourougou mountain range, which borders the Spanish territory of Melilla. The mother was admitted to hospital in the city of Nador “in a critical condition”;.
No further details were made available by the Moroccan authorities.
The Gourougou range has become a refuge for many sub-Saharan African migrants seeking to cross the roughly 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) razor-wired triple-fence that separates Moroccan territory from Melilla.
The death of the three children “is a terrible tragedy”;, Abidar said, adding that “migrants in this region live in precarious and inhumane conditions”;.
Many migrants seek to cross from Morocco into the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta, giving them direct access to European Union territory on the African mainland. Some 700 migrants — an unprecedented number — attempted to cross into Melilla in October but were rebuffed by Moroccan border forces.
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