1 dead, 40 arrested after migrants breach Spanish port

An African migrant died and 40 others were arrested early Tuesday when around 150 migrants tried to enter Spain's North African port of Melilla, announced the Moroccan news agency MAP. The migrants stormed the seven-meter-high border fence, near the Moroccan town of Beni Chiguer. Spanish authorities had previously topped the fence with barbed wire to discourage such breaches. At dawn, four people were injured, while more than 60 others managed to enter Melilla after the migrants charged into an unfortified part of the fence that surrounds the Spanish city. Melilla is a port in the north of Morocco under the sovereignty of Spain and is a famous point of transit for migrants from sub- Saharan Africa. Thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and unrest try to enter Europe each year via Morocco, either by land to Ceuta or Melilla, two Spanish ports in the Moroccan territory, or by sea to Spain or Italy, often in flimsy vessels.