A 27-year-old Moroccan man suffocated to death while trying to illegally enter Spain hidden inside a suitcase in the trunk of a car, police said Monday.
The man’s older brother appears to have tried to smuggle him into Spain by ferry.
The older man, aged 34, legally boarded the ferry linking Melilla, a tiny Spanish territory in north Africa, and Almeria in southern Spain with a car on Sunday, a police spokesman said.
During the crossing he noticed that his brother was not breathing and alerted the ferry’s staff.
Crew members as well as emergency services workers in the port of Almeria tried in vain to resuscitate the man.
Police have charged the man’s brother with involuntary manslaughter.
The Mediterranean has become the world’s deadliest barrier for migrants and refugees, with 3,500 thought to have died at sea last year and almost 2,000 so far this year. Many are fleeing poverty and violence in the Middle East and Africa.
Britain and France urged other European Union states on Sunday to help them tackle a growing crisis in northern France caused by thousands of migrants seeking to make illegal and dangerous crossings to Britain.
Four migrants died on Sunday after trying to swim around a maritime fence separating Ceuta from Morocco, the Moroccan authorities said.
