By Rodrigo De Miguel
MADRID, Feb 28 (Reuters) – More than 200 migrants scaled the
triple fence surrounding Spain’s North African enclave of
Melilla on Friday in another mass crossing of the heavily
protected border, the Spanish government said.
Earlier this month the European Union asked Spain to explain
why police had fired rubber bullets in warning when a group of
African migrants tried to wade and swim to Ceuta, another
Spanish enclave in North Africa.
Fourteen men died in the Feb. 6 incident when the shots
caused panic among the immigrants.
On Friday scores of men from Cameroon and other African
countries cried with joy after climbing over the fences, kissed
the ground and turned somersaults to celebrate a crossing that
many hope will lead to jobs in Europe.
Spain’s government said in a statement that the migrants had
thrown rocks, sticks and bottles at police to keep them at bay
while they crossed.
“The recent incidents… make it clear that the European
Union must renew its concerns about these matters,” Deputy Prime
Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said at her weekly news
conference on Friday.
She defended the actions of Spanish security forces and said
Spain was securing its frontiers on behalf of all of Europe,
noting that organised mass border crossings into Ceuta and
Melilla are staged by groups that profit on human trafficking.
“There must be an understanding of how difficult it is to
manage these borders,” she said in response to criticism of the
use of rubber bullets to deter immigrants.
Immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa usually enter Ceuta and
Melilla without identification papers. Spain houses them in
overcrowded processing centres in the territories while trying
to establish their identities in order to send them back to
countries with which it has repatriation agreements.
Hundreds of hopeful immigrants camp out for weeks and months
in Moroccan territory just outside both cities preparing to
attempt to climb the fences or to swim along the coast.
In recent years Spain has built new, higher fences around
the enclaves – both along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco –
and lined them with razor wire, but several thousand immigrants
still manage to make the crossing every year.
(Writing by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Julien Toyer and Alistair
Lyon)
