Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – Dressed in swimsuits, paddling kayaks and holding their breaths, dozens of activists from the association Emmaus crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to Morocco on Saturday, bringing awareness to the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean and defending the universal right to freedom of movement.
Thirty-five kayakers and eight swimmers, including Damien CarĆŖme,the mayor of Grande-Synthe, France, set out on a symbolic 15-kilometer sea journey. The initiativeās name,āArticle 13ā, recalls that free circulation is an integral part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While āeveryone has the right to freedom of movementā as well as āthe right to leave any country, including his own,ā according to Article 13 of the declaration,migrants continue to cross the heavily-policed European border along the Mediterranean in threatening conditions, and many have lost their lives in the process.
The initiative has beeno rganized by two Emmaus activists working in migration. āWe were welcoming people in great difficulty, with children,ā said Maria Guerra, one of the organizers to Le Firago, noting that āthe sinking of a boat carrying 700 people in the Mediterranean added to th efeeling of helplessness.ā
To protest against the violation of Article 13 by various Mediterranean countriesā border policies, the two organizers decided to carry out a symbolic action by crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.
āIt is an emblematic place that connects two continents. Many people pass through it and lose their lives,ā the organizer said.
For Guerra, ātaking this 15-kilometer route highlights the inequality of the right to cross a border,āwhich both she and her colleague have personally undergone.
Maria is Spanish. She arrived to France with her parents, fleeing the Franco regime. Similarly, her colleague, Alain Gomez, is Moroccan.
āWe know exile. We know what it is to be uprooted. When I arrived in France, I lived in a shantytown,ā she concluded.
