UN Security Council Divided in Addressing Melilla Incidents

African migrants attempting to storm the border crossing with Melilla city. (AP)
African migrants attempting to storm the border crossing with Melilla city. (AP)
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UN Security Council Divided in Addressing Melilla Incidents

African migrants attempting to storm the border crossing with Melilla city. (AP)
African migrants attempting to storm the border crossing with Melilla city. (AP)

The United Nations Security Council held a closed-door session on Wednesday to discuss last week's Melilla tragedy.

At least 23 migrants died trying to cross into the Spanish enclave, amid clashes with Moroccan and Spanish security forces, and 140 security personnel were injured.

About 2,000 migrants tried to storm a border post, in the first such mass incursion since Spain and Morocco mended diplomatic relations last month.

However, diplomats in New York said the 15-member Council failed to issue a unanimous statement.

The session was held upon Kenya’s request. It proposed issuing a statement to condemn the plight of African migrants on the Mediterranean coast and call on Morocco and Spain to carry out an immediate and impartial investigation into the tragedy.

But that text, which diplomats said has caused the discontent of the United States in particular, has not come to light due to the lack of consensus required for the Council to publish it.

The three members of the African Council, namely Ghana, Gabon and Kenya, were divided on the issue and failed to agree on a common position on how the Council should deal with the tragedy, a diplomatic source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

For his part, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Kenya to the UN, Michael Kiboino, declined to respond to a question on his country’s draft resolution, assuring reporters that discussions on the text are ongoing.

Diplomats said the session began with a briefing by UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris, which rarely happens in the UNSC .

Following the session, Kiboino released a statement stressing that African migrants “were brutalized by security forces while trying to enter" Melilla.

He affirmed that the session was aimed at calling for treating Africans “humanely” and underlining the importance of responding to “the security needs of the Africans who fled the wars and insecurity in their countries.”

In reference to the difference in the way the Council is addressing the Ukrainian crisis, Kiboino stressed that the “Security Council and its member states are deeply concerned about the fate of refugees from other conflicts.”

“We believe that Africans fleeing war and insecurity in their own countries deserve the same respect,” he added.



Hamas Releases Video of Two Israeli Hostages Alive in Gaza

 A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Hamas Releases Video of Two Israeli Hostages Alive in Gaza

 A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A picture taken near Israel's border with Gaza shows smoke billowing in the besieged Palestinian territory on May 8, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Hamas's armed wing released a video on Saturday showing two Israeli hostages alive in the Gaza Strip, with one of the two men calling to end the 19-month-long war.

Israeli media identified the pair in the undated video as Elkana Bohbot and Yosef Haim Ohana, who were kidnapped during Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war.

The three-minute video released by Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades shows one of the hostages, identified by media as 36-year-old Bohbot, visibly weak and lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket.

Bohbot, a Colombian-Israeli, was seen bound and injured in the face in video footage from the day of the Hamas attack. After a video of him was released last month, his family said they were "extremely concerned" about his health.

The second hostage, said to be Ohana, 24, speaks in Hebrew in the video, urging the Israeli government to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of all remaining captives -- a similar message to statements made by other hostages, likely under duress, in previous videos released by Hamas.

Bohbot and Ohana, both abducted by Palestinian gunmen from the site of a music festival, are among 58 hostages held in Gaza since the 2023 attack, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas also holds the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a 2014 war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the fate of three hostages presumed alive was unclear, without naming them.

"We know with certainty that 21 hostages are alive... and there are three others whose status, sadly, we do not know," Netanyahu said in a video shared on his Telegram channel.

Israel resumed its military offensive across the Gaza Strip on March 18, after a two-month truce that saw the release of dozens of hostages.

Since the ceasefire collapsed, Hamas has released several videos of hostages, including of the two appearing in Saturday's video.

Israel says the renewed offensive aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, although critics charge that it puts them in mortal danger.

Hamas's October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that at least 2,701 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,810.