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 Carême,the mayor of Grande-Synthe, France, set out on a symbolic 15-kilometer sea journey. The initiative’s name,“Article 13”, recalls that free circulation is an integral part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While “everyone has the right to freedom of movement” as well as “the right to leave any country, including his own,” 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. “We were welcoming people in great difficulty, with children,” said Maria Guerra, one of the organizers to Le Firago, noting that “the sinking of a boat carrying 700 people in the Mediterranean added to th efeeling of helplessness.”
To protest against the violation of Article 13 by various Mediterranean countries’ border policies, the two organizers decided to carry out a symbolic action by crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.
“It is an emblematic place that connects two continents. Many people pass through it and lose their lives,” the organizer said.
For Guerra, “taking this 15-kilometer route highlights the inequality of the right to cross a border,”which 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.
“We know exile. We know what it is to be uprooted. When I arrived in France, I lived in a shantytown,” she concluded.
