Spain insists no deaths on its soil during Melilla tragedy

By JOSEPH WILSON
Associated Press

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain’s interior minister has flatly rejected new media reports of possible deaths on Spanish soil during a June storming of the border fence separating its north African enclave of Melilla from Morocco when at least 23 people died. Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Spain’s Parliament Wednesday that “we did not have to lament any loss of human life in our national territory.” That comes after new media reports that claim that at least one death could have occurred on Spanish soil when on June 24th a large group of migrants were crushed in a stampede while breaking through a border gate on the Melilla frontier.