‘A bloodbath’: refugees reel from deadly Melilla mass crossing

Flowers are laid in Madrid in memory of the 23 people who were killed during the crossing from Morocco last Friday. Photograph: Pablo Blázquez Domínguez/Getty

Seconds after Mohamed stepped on to Spanish soil, he turned around to see how his friends had fared along the metres-high chain link fence that slices off the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco.

“It was horrible,” said the 20-year-old from Sudan. “It was a bloodbath; many of them appeared dead and many were injured.”