Posted on 09/29/2005 6:05:47 AM PDT by Our_Man_In_Gough_Island
Spain has ordered troops to help police secure the borders of two enclaves in northern Morocco where four Africans died Thursday and about 50 others were injured in a stampede of would-be immigrants.
Defense Minister Jose Bono told reporters in Parliament that Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had told him to deploy soldiers to help the Civil Guard patrolling the wire fences that separate the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco.
``The president of the government has given me the order that as of today the Civil Guard should be reinforced by the army to tackle this problem, and this will be done,'' Bono said.
The order came after officials confirmed that two Africans died when hundreds of would-be illegal immigrants stormed the fence in Ceuta before dawn. Spanish National Radio later cited the Civil Guard in Ceuta confirming that at least two had died on the Moroccan side of the fence.
The Interior Ministry office in Ceuta said one of the victims got caught on the tall fence as he tried to climb over. Another was said to have died after being trampled by the crowd.
It was the latest in a series of attempts by hundreds of people to rush border crossings in Melilla, further east along the northern Moroccan coast .
``We didn't think this would happen,'' Jeronimo Nieto told Spanish National Radio. ``We had the security forces at the perimeter on the alert for something like this. ... A group that big, organized and coordinated and the sudden way it happened last night was something fairly new to us.''
Wow - troops on the border, a decent wall - all to keep out illegal immigrants - would would have thunk that?
Here is yesterday's legacy post on the Spanish Plazas incident:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1492743/posts
Hey, this is simple. Blow up something in Madrid, the troops will be out of there by sundown.
ping
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