50 migrants cross into Spanish African enclave; 5 injured

MADRID – Some 50 migrants on Monday forced their way into Spain’s Melilla city over the fence that separates the European enclave in northern Africa, authorities there said.

The central government’s delegation in Melilla, which borders Morocco, said that they were part of a group of around 250 migrants who launched a “massive and violent entry” into the city, scaling the fence and ignoring the Spanish law enforcement officers on guard.

A Red Cross spokesman in the city said that volunteers had assisted several migrants with cuts and bruises at the gates of Melilla’s temporary migrant internment centre, and that at least four of them had been transferred to a hospital with possible bone fractures and other ailments.

One soldier from Spain’s Armed Forces was injured, the government’s delegation said.

Melilla and nearby Ceuta are two tiny enclaves separated from Morocco by barbed-wire fences and constant border monitoring.

At least 1,140 migrants entered the two enclaves by land without authorization in the first three months of the year, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry. That is 214 fewer than during the same period in 2019.