Many of the victims, according to the UNHCR, are from countries like Chad, Niger, Sudan, and South Sudan and would qualify as possible asylum seekers under international law.

Uncertainty surrounds the precise cause of the deaths. However, reports indicated that some of the migrants may have died from suffocation or crushing because of a stampede provoked by Moroccan police charges.

There is a chance that more people died when they fell from the top of the border fence, which is between 6 and 10 meters high where the atrocity occurred. Others may have been directly killed by police who were seen hitting them with stones and batons.