MADRID: Around 350 migrants tried to scale the fence from Morocco into Spain’s Melilla enclave before dawn on Saturday but none managed to get across, a Spanish government spokesman said.
Spanish border forces had been alerted at around 5:30 am by their Moroccan counterparts that “a group of 350 sub-Saharan Africans” were trying to scale the fence near the Barrio Chino border post, prompting Guardia Civil police to deploy a helicopter to head them off.
“No one got across,” the spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another group of more than 300 people had tried to cross into Melilla on August 20 but none managed to get in, he said.
Three days earlier, more than 50 did succeed in entering the tiny enclave when around 150 people stormed the fence. And on July 22, more than 230 people managed to sneak into Melilla in one of the largest influxes in recent years.
Spain’s two tiny enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla have Europe’s only land border with Africa, making them a magnet for migrants desperate to escape grinding poverty and hunger.
In mid-May, Spain was caught off guard when more than 10,000 people swam or used small inflatable boats to cross into Ceuta as the Moroccan border forces looked the other way.
The influx came during a diplomatic crisis between Spain and Morocco, with Madrid angering Rabat by allowing a Western Sahara separatist leader to be treated at a Spanish hospital.
The border breach was widely seen as a punitive move by Morocco. Although most migrants were returned immediately, by the end of July some 2,500 remained in Ceuta, officials there said, among them around 800 unaccompanied minors.
350 migrants stopped from crossing into Spain’s Melilla
https://arab.news/9dbke
350 migrants stopped from crossing into Spain’s Melilla
- Spanish forces had been alerted by Moroccan counterparts that "a group of 350 sub-Saharan Africans" were trying to scale the fence
- Another group of more than 300 people had tried to cross into Melilla on August 20
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
