Death toll from attempted mass crossing from Morocco to Spanish enclave rises to 23 as Pedro Sanchez decries ‘attack on territorial integrity’.

Human rights groups in Morocco and Spain have called for an investigation into the deaths of 23 people during an attempted mass crossing into the Spanish enclave of Melilla in northern Africa.

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), in a series of tweets on Saturday, called for a “comprehensive, quick and serious” investigation into Friday’s events and published videos of the aftermath of the attempted mass crossing.

The footage showed dozens of people lying by the border fence, some bleeding and many apparently lifeless as Moroccan security forces stood over them.

The mass crossing attempt on Friday was the first since Spain and Morocco mended relations after a year-long dispute related to Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1976.

A month after Spain allowed Ghali to be treated in a Spanish hospital, some 10,000 refugees and migrants surged across the Moroccan border into Spain’s Ceuta enclave as border guards purportedly looked the other way, in what was widely seen as a punitive gesture by Rabat