SPAIN: Spain is to step up security on the frontier between its north African enclave of Melilla and neighbouring Morocco to prevent invasions of immigrants.
The wire fence separating the two territories has come under repeated incursions during the past month, when hundreds of would-be immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa attempted to gain access to Europe to find work. Three men have died in their attempt and many others have been treated for fractures and cuts from the sharp wire.
The invasions came to a climax early yesterday morning when more than 1,000 staged simultaneous raids on different sectors of the 10.5km fence and clashed with Spanish civil guards, who tried to prevent them climbing over the 3m-high wire. Some 300 succeeded in reaching their goal when police were outnumbered. Twenty people, including six civil guards, were treated for injuries.
Under a bilateral treaty, Moroccan citizens are returned home immediately, but the hundreds who arrive from other African countries, particularly Mali, Sierra Leone, Cameroons and Nigeria, carry no papers and often refuse to reveal their nationality leaving authorities unable to repatriate them.
The immigrants' centre in Melilla, designed to house around 400 men and women, is now overcrowded at double its capacity. This week a temporary camp was established with army tents, and the government has announced it is increasing the height of the fence to 6m.
Many arrivals describe harrowing tales of weeks, even months, of journeying across deserts from their homes in central and west Africa to Morocco.
Gangs of people smugglers extort large sums of money, promising to transfer them across the borders and even find work. Television footage has shown how these gangs hide their human cargo in woods in Morocco near the Melilla border to escort them on dark nights to various points in the fence.
Border guards are unable to cope with the waves of men and women - some with babies strapped to their bodies - who succeed in climbing the fence. Several of the guards have been injured, buried under the weight of the arrivals falling on them.
For many years the favoured method of entering Europe has been by sea in flimsy boats. But desperate immigrants and greedy smugglers have been forced to resort to other methods.