MELILLA (Spain), Oct 3: Scores of people were injured on Monday when around 650 would-be illegal immigrants stormed the Spanish enclave of Melilla in Morocco, humanitarian workers and officials said.
“The health centre is overflowing and around 7:00am I saw dozens of wounded people there as well as at the police station,” Jose Palazo of the Association for Children’s Rights, a Spanish non-government organization, said.
“From what I saw, these people were injured by blows from batons and rifle butts,” he said, while officials said 650 would-be illegal immigrants stormed part of the metal fence separating Melilla from the north African country.
The number of such mass assaults has increased in recent months by people who have made an arduous trek to Morocco on the Mediterranean from African countries further south in the hope of escaping poverty and starting new lives in Europe.
The latest invasion of Melilla prompted Spain’s interior minister to announce reinforcements of the borders.
“We are going to continue to reinforce the border perimeter and the fence,” said Jose Antonio Alonso at a news conference on Monday.
Spanish authorities said work on the raising of the double fence around the town of Ceuta was expected to be finished two weeks ahead of schedule.
The invasion of Melilla came as interior ministers from the western Mediterranean met in Rabat to discuss illegal immigration and terrorism.
“The immigrants are very agitated because they’re afraid the Spanish are reinforcing their means to prevent them from entering Europe,” a Spanish interior ministry source said.
Immigrant support groups said action by Moroccan security forces was causing more immigrants to try to cross.
“Faced with growing arrests, the illegals have two possibilities: either to try to cross into Spain whatever it costs, or to be expelled from Morocco. They chose to charge,” said Khalid Jemmah, president of the association of families and friends of illegal immigrants.
The Melilla governor’s office said 135 people had been injured during the latest assault and almost doubled initial reports on how many people took part.
Hospital authorities in the Moroccan town of Nador, next to Melilla, said they had treated 18 injured immigrants, including two with fractured limbs and another whose hand had been torn on the fence.
The raiders ‘brought down the fence for 20 metres in two places’, an official statement said, while a journalist said they had used makeshift ladders at two spots where the barrier was about six metres high.
The governor’s office said the raiders, four of whom were seriously injured, had hurled rocks at border guards, injuring seven officers with one suffering a serious head injury.
A photographer at the scene said he had been told 350 people had entered Melilla.
Moroccan authorities said they had made 131 arrests in the order district known as Barrio Chino and had begun an inquiry into the incident.
About 300 of those who made it across headed for Melilla police station to register and be given notice of expulsion, a procedure which gives them access to a local reception centre, medical aid and possible entry to the EU.
The latest assault on the Spanish enclave took place at 5:15am in spite of the deployment of 480 troops by Spain and 1,300 police and security officers by Morocco.—AFP
