Spain Heightens Fence at African Enclave

Spanish authorities are rushing to double the height of a fence surrounding the north African enclave of Melilla after a dozen more immigrants were injured in a battle with police as they tried to find a way on to European soil.

The injuries followed the deaths of at least three immigrants over the past three weeks during mass attempts to storm the frontier that have ended in clashes with both Spanish police and their Moroccan counterparts on the other side of Melilla's border. Immigrants are using ladders and what one official called "military tactics" in their increasingly desperate attempts to get through the barrier erected around what is, in effect, a land frontier between the European Union and Africa.

Two 3m-high (10ft) security fences ring the Spanish enclave, which is home to 60,000 Spaniards and lies nine miles from the Moroccan city of Nador. Melilla is, with Ceuta, one of two Spanish enclaves on the coast of north Africa whose sovereignty is also claimed by Morocco. The six mile-long frontier has sensor pads, movement detectors, spotlights, infrared cameras and is patrolled by the Spanish civil guard.

The migrants, who have often travelled thousands of miles through central Africa and the Sahara to get to Melilla, try to cross the frontier in groups of up to 200. "We go in a group and all jump at once. We know that some will get through, that others will be injured and others may die, but we have to get through, whatever the cost," one told El Periódico newspaper.

Pitched battles with civil guard and army units from the notoriously tough Spanish Legion have seen rubber bullets fired at close range, according to immigrants and NGOs, while the Moroccans are accused of using bayonets and shotguns.

A 17-year-old from Cameroon was the first to die at the frontier after an attempted mass assault three weeks ago. Two more men have died in hospital in Melilla since then after fellow sub-Saharan Africans dropped them, badly injured, close to the fence. Local NGOs in Melilla claim the body of a fourth man was secretly removed by Moroccan police, who have spent several weeks chasing the sub-Saharan Africans out of forests surrounding the enclave. Spanish police deny responsibility for the deaths.

Several hundred immigrants have been reportedly rounded up by Moroccan police and put over the border with Algeria in recent weeks, though Spanish newspapers said yesterday many had already made the 95-mile trip back on foot. Spain began to double the height of the outer fence days ago, but said the job would take weeks. The new fence will be much higher than the Berlin Wall.

Police said they used anti-riot material to deter yesterday's immigrants. "When they arrive en masse the civil guard has to use this sort of material," government official José Fernández Chacón said.