The Maghreb Social Forum on Migration (FSMM) has rejected ‘the new European pact and all policies of restriction on the right of circulation’ one year after at least 23 people died trying to cross into the Spanish enclave of Melilla.

Development Diaries reports that the forum instead called for a ‘transnational solidarity pact’ with migrants.

It made the call after talks in Nador, a northeast Morocco town near the border with Melilla.

It is understood that rights activists from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, and African migrants’ associations from Spain, France and Belgium, as well as Morocco, attended the meeting.

They highlighted increasing concerns over irregular migration in the region while rejecting the new European policies of restriction on the right of circulation.

According to Migration Data Portal, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia, have historically been and remain significant countries of migrant destination, transit and departure.

In a recent report, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) sait 2,406 migrants died or disappeared in the Mediterranean in 2022, while 1,166 such cases have occurred since the start of 2023.

In early June 2023, the European Union’s (EU) interior ministers revised the bloc’s rules, to share more equitably the hosting of asylum-seekers and migrants. The proposal called for compulsory help between European Union (EU) countries.

However, FSMM appealed for independent commissions of enquiry into migration tragedies in the region, particularly Morocco and Tunisia, both of which are hubs for sub-Saharan African migrants seeking a better life in Europe.

Photo source: IOM