1,000 Migrants Fail in Attempt to Reach Spanish Enclave

MADRID (AP) — Around 1,000 migrants tried unsuccessfully to climb over the barrier separating Morocco from one of Spain’s African enclaves on Tuesday, authorities in Spain said.

The representative for Spain’s government in Melilla said that Moroccan border guards repelled the attempt while Spanish border guards remained positioned on the other side of the frontier.

The failed attempt to reach European Union territory came less than a week after an unprecedented 2,500 people tried to enter the city, with 491 managing to get across two 6-meter (20-foot) fences onto the Spanish side. That was followed a day later by another push by some 1,200 people, resulting in another 380 crossings.

People fleeing violence or poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa sometimes use mass border incursions to try to reach Melilla and Spain’s other city on the North Africa coast, Ceuta, as a springboard to continental Europe.

The attempts include violent clashes between those crossing and the agents charged to stop them.