Moroccan Man Dies While Being Smuggled Into Spain In Suitcase

Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish enclave on Morocco’s northern coast, form the only land border between Europe and Africa.

A Moroccan man is said to have suffocated after stowing away in a suitcase for a ferry crossing to Almeria in Spain.

The suitcase was hidden inside the boot of a auto belonging to the victim’s 34-year-old brother, who was on the same ferry.

Medical teams and ferry staff attempted to revive the man after his brother went to check on the stowaway and saw that he was no long breathing, the Spanish civil guard said.

Francisco Jerez, spokesman for the Interior Ministry’s office in Almeria, confirmed the older brother, a Moroccan with a French passport, has now been arrested by police.

The owner of the vehicle, the dead man’s brother, has been arrested, according to government officials. Six-metre-high fences surround both Melilla and Ceuta, which border Morocco.

Human Rights Watch says at least 4,300 people entered Ceuta and Melilla illegally in 2013, compared to 2,804 the year before.

In February last year, hundreds of migrants stormed the fence in Melilla in one day, with around 100 managing to make it into the enclave.

In May an 8-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast was discovered by a security scanner also curled up inside a suitcase. The boy survived abd has since been granted a temporary residency permit to live with his parents.

His father, a legal resident in Spain, had tried to smuggle the boy into Spain because his income was too low to request residency papers for his son.