Over a Dozen Spanish Border Guards Injured as 500 Migrants Try to Storm City

A total of 13 Spanish Civil Guards were injured on Wednesday in Melilla after two migrant mobs numbering between 400 and 100 attempted to violently storm the border.

The attack on the border of the Spanish city — an exclave lying across the sea from the Spanish mainland on the North African coast — took place early in the day on Wednesday and saw the two groups, one of around 400 and another of around 100, use makeshift clubs and stones against both the Spanish border authorities and Moroccan personnel on the other side of the border attempting to halt the crossings.

The first group of around 400 migrants, all said to be from sub-Saharan Africa, attempted to storm the border at around 4 a.m., while the second group of around a hundred made their attempt a short time later at 6:30 a.m. and managed to reach the city’s border fence, El Mundo reports.

A Spanish government spokesman said the joint operation between Spanish and Moroccan forces was able to prevent any of the mob from illegally crossing the border but denounced the violence used by the migrants, noting that 13 Civil Guard members had been injured.

“Some have gone to the emergency room,” the spokesman said.

The attempted storming of the exclave is just the latest this year, with another similar incident taking place in May that saw hundreds try and enter both Melilla and Spain’s other African exclave, Ceuta.

Between the start of January and mid-December of this year, Spain has seen over 37,000 migrants enter the country illegally, while Moroccan authorities have claimed to have prevented another 11,000 from crossing the border.

Authorities have been relatively successful in preventing crossings into Melilla and Ceuta and the route that saw the most growth in 2021 was that to Spain’s Canary Islands, with over 22,000 making the sea journey to the popular tourist and expatriate hotspot this year.

The Canary Islands route is also the most dangerous of the Spanish migration routes, and as a result of the growth the number of deaths of migrants this year hit a record high of 1,025.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com