More than 2,000 migrants storm fence into Spanish enclave

Five migrants were killed and dozens were injured after a huge crowd tried to cross from Morocco into Spain 's Melilla enclave on Friday 24th.

Some 2,000 migrants made approached the EU's only land border with Africa at dawn over 500 managed to enter a border control area after cutting a fence with shears, the Spanish government's local delegation said in a statement.

Of these, 130 sub-Saharan African migrants, 'all of them men and apparently adults', managed to enter Melilla, it added.

A Moroccan official from the nearby border town of Nador said 'five deaths were recorded after they stormed the border and some fell from the top of the barrier' separating the two sides. He said 140 security personnel and 76 migrants were injured during the attempt to cross, the first such mass incursion since Spain and Morocco mended diplomatic relations last month.

The Spanish government's local delegation said only that 49 Spanish police officers were lightly injured while 57 migrants suffered injuries of varying degrees, including three who were hospitalised.

Morocco had deployed a 'large' number of forces to try to repel the assault on the border, who 'cooperated actively' with Spain's security forces, it said earlier in a statement.

Spain normally relies on Morocco to keep migrants away from the border.

At the beginning of March, more than 3,500 people tried to scale the 20-foot (6-metre) barrier that perimeters Melilla, and nearly 1,000 making it across, according to Spanish authorities.

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