Moroccan man dies during journey to Spain in suitcase

A 27-YEAR-OLD Moroccan man died after suffocating when his brother tried to smuggle him into Spain in a suitcase in the trunk of a car, according to the AP news agency. The car was travelling in a ferry from the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the way to the port of Almeria. 

Authorities were alerted when the man’s brother tried to get help for him on the ferry shortly before it arrived in the Spanish port on Sunday (August 2). Spokesperson for the Interior Ministry office in Almeria, Francisco Jerez, said the man’s brother, who holds a French passport, had been arrested. 

Both the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta, which border Morocco, are the scene of many attempts by immigrants to make their way to Europe illegally. In a similar incident in May, a Moroccan woman was found guilty of trying to smuggle an eight-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast in a suitcase into Spain via Ceuta. The boy was found when authorities, suspicious of the woman’s behaviour, passed the case through an x-ray machine and made the shocking discovery.