http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/09 ... index.html

MADRID, Spain (Reuters) -- Hundreds of Africans using makeshift ladders tried to scale a razor wire barrier into a Spanish enclave in Morocco in the second mass assault on the border in 24 hours, the government said on Wednesday.

Spain's North African enclave of Melilla asked the army for help after 400 migrants tried to scramble into its territory on Tuesday night. Some 200 succeeded, adding to the 100 or more who entered during a bid by 500 people before dawn on Tuesday.

Forty of the mainly sub-Saharans involved in the latest attempt were injured, along with five civil guards, a government spokesman in Melilla said.

Spain is already in the process of reinforcing the fence surrounding the colony to try to keep out would-be migrants, many of whom have traveled on foot for months for the chance of entering Europe.

This week's mass assaults on the lower part of the fence may have been brought on by work to double its height to six meters (20 feet) along the whole 10-kilometer (6-mile) border, which is now nearing completion.

Spain has owned the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the northern coast of Morocco since the late 15th century.

Morocco, which claims them, is struggling to deal with an influx of sub-Saharan Africans into its territory as well as curb its own citizens' attempts to use sea routes to cross to Spain illegally.

"Peeking over the gates of Melilla and Ceuta is the tip of a human iceberg formed by hundreds of thousands of African citizens 'expelled' from their own countries by hunger, war, poverty or persecution," Spain's Secretary of State for Security, Antonio Camacho, told Congress on Wednesday.

"This creates a delicate, complex and serious problem for the country," he said.

Migrant pressure on Melilla is nothing new but it has increased dramatically in recent years, he added.

In 2002, police stopped and turned back 12,000 people at the border and by 2004 that had risen to almost 56,000.

Many of those who travel to Melilla camp in woods outside the fence, subsisting on next to nothing for long periods, while waiting for a chance to cross.

The reception center inside the territory is saturated and the government has erected tents to house more of those who succeed in getting through.

Repatriation problems
Sub-Saharan immigrants present Spain with a worse problem than Moroccans or Algerians, whom it simply sends back, because it often lacks repatriation agreements with their countries of origin.

Spain has such a deal with Nigeria, is negotiating with Ghana but is only in preliminary talks with Cameroon and Mali, from where many of the migrants come, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Spain therefore often has no choice but to free these migrants, after handing them an expulsion order which the authorities cannot carry out.

Reception centers in the Canary Islands -- another frequent destination for boatloads of illegal migrants -- and the enclaves regularly become saturated. The government then transports migrants to mainland Spain and releases them there where they typically hang out in city parks and try to make a living selling pirate CDS or, if they are lucky, working in construction.