Migrants storm Spanish enclave for second day running

Hundreds of migrants stormed the border separating Spain’s Melilla enclave from Morocco on Thursday, a day after the biggest such attempt on record.

Melilla and Ceuta, Spain’s other tiny North African enclave, have the European Union’s only land borders with Africa, making them a magnet for migrants desperate to escape grinding poverty and hunger.

Around 1,200 migrants tried to force their way into Melilla on Thursday and “380 migrants managed to enter the city”, Sabrina Moh Abdelkader, the government’s representative in Melilla, told reporters, raising an earlier figure of 350.

“At around 7:25 am, after overcoming the Moroccan security forces, they began to jump the fence… throwing stones and using hooks and sticks against the security forces,” a spokesman for the Spanish government’s local delegation said.

The incident occurred a day after an unprecedented 2,500 migrants made a mass run at the Melilla border. Almost 500 managed to cross, in what the Spanish government’s local delegation said was “the biggest entry attempt on record”.

Officials said both events were characterised by more violence than previous attempts and quickly moved to call in security reinforcements to deploy along the border.

“The level of aggression we’ve seen in both entries yesterday and today… has not been seen before,” Abdelkader said.

Twenty-three officers were lightly injured on Thursday with cuts and bruises while 32 migrants were treated in hospital, the central government’s delegation in Melilla said.

During Wednesday’s border rush, the delegation said some migrants had bolts screwed into their shoes to help them cross, which “being sharp, carries a huge risk” for the police and security forces.

That incident left 27 police and 20 migrants lightly injured, the delegation said, while on the other side of the border, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) said some 30 migrants had been hurt, three or four seriously.

– ‘Mammoth job’ –

On Thursday, the AMDH said 250 people had been arrested by the Moroccan security forces and placed in a temporary detention centre before being expelled from the border town of Nador, 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Melilla.

With 871 migrants entering Melilla in just under 24 hours, the figure is fast approaching that for the whole of 2021, when 1,092 migrants reached the enclave, interior ministry figures showed.

Moh said around 100 police would arrive in Melilla “in the next few hours” to reinforce the force at the border, while Maria Gamez, head of Spain’s Guardia Civil police, would also visit the enclave to assess the situation.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called the assaults on the border “very worrying”.

“We have gone months without these types of assaults, or when there have been attempts, it was possible in cooperation with the Moroccan authorities to repel them,” he said during an interview with Spanish television.

In Rabat a Moroccan government spokesman said the country “does a mammoth job of monitoring its borders”, and was a “distinguished partner of the European Union in migration management”.

– Western Sahara tensions –

Claimed by Morocco, Melilla and Ceuta have long been a point of dispute in bilateral diplomatic relations, with Madrid insisting both are integral parts of Spain.

In mid-May 2021, Spain was caught off guard when more than 10,000 people swam or used small inflatable boats to enter Ceuta as Moroccan border forces looked the other way.

That influx took place during a diplomatic crisis between Madrid and Rabat over Western Sahara, which has long pushed for independence from Morocco.

Madrid had angered Morocco by allowing Western Sahara independence leader Brahim Ghali into a Spanish hospital when he was very sick with Covid, sparking a tense diplomatic standoff, with the border breach widely seen as a punitive move by Rabat.

Late last month, Sanchez met Ghali on the sidelines of an EU-African Union summit in Brussels, in a move which further rattled Rabat.

“By meeting with the separatist leader in Brussels… Sanchez has shown that the Kingdom of Morocco was right not to believe in Spanish officials’ fine rhetoric,” wrote the Moroccan news website Le360.

Morocco’s ambassador to Spain was recalled for consultations during the Ceuta crisis and has still not returned to his post.