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Spanish enclaves quiet after deathsFrom CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman RELATED
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSMADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Just a day after six sub-Saharan Africans died while trying to cross from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Melilla, there was no mass assault by immigrants overnight, an unusual spell of quiet after several weeks of disturbances, a Spanish Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN on Friday. Moroccan Communications Ministry officials said the six Africans died on Moroccan territory in the predawn hours Thursday while trying to scale the fence at Melilla, the enclave on Morocco's north coast. They were part of a mass assault involving hundreds of would-be immigrants. But the Moroccan officials declined to confirm news reports from Morocco that at least some of the six had been shot by Moroccan security forces, which have been beefed up at Melilla and the other Spanish enclave, Ceuta, as Morocco moves to help Spain quell the avalanche of illegal immigrants. The night of calm in Melilla also came just hours after Spain -- for the first time since the crisis began -- deported 73 sub-Saharan Africans to Morocco on Thursday, the Interior Ministry spokesman said. The 73 Africans were deported on a boat from Algeciras, on mainland Spain's southern tip, to the Moroccan city of Tangier, just across the Strait of Gibraltar. The deportees earlier had illegally crossed the fences into Melilla and Ceuta, both on Morocco's northern coast, and were later sent to Algeciras. The deportations were done under a little-used 1992 agreement allowing Spain to undertake "exceptional repatriation" of immigrants entering Spanish territory illegally from Morocco, even if they were not Moroccan nationals. The president of the Melilla government, Juan Jose Imbroda Ortiz, told CNN on Thursday that the aim of returning the Africans to Morocco was to take away what he called the "prize" of letting them stay in Spain after having entered illegally. He said he hoped that measure would reduce the incentive for immigrants because their goal has been to get a foot in Spain, in hopes they would then be allowed to stay. Another focal point of the crisis on Friday was a desert location in Morocco, about 370 miles (600 kilometers) south of Melilla. The Doctors Without Borders organization said some 500 sub-Saharan Africans had been sent there with little food or water by the Moroccan authorities, after rounding them up near the Spanish enclaves far to the north. Jordi Passola, spokesman for the Spanish branch of Doctors Without Borders, told CNN partner station CNN+ in Madrid that his group had confirmed that the 500 Africans, including men, women and children, were in the southern desert near the border with Algeria. Some were injured while trying to scale the fences to get into the Spanish enclaves, far to the north, Passola said. Later on Friday, Javier Gabaldon of Doctors Without Borders said that Moroccan security forces in a helicopter and all-terrain vehicles were carrying out a kind of "manhunt" in the desert, trying to keep the sub-Saharan Africans together in a group, and push them toward the Algerian border. Gabaldon, in a phone call with CNN+, said he was in the desert area witnessing the Moroccan forces as they carried out this task. He said he was providing immigrants with potable water, blankets and plastic to make rudimentary shelters, and also was attending to five of the wounded. Gabaldon said some of the immigrants appeared to have been hit by rubber ball-type bullets. The Interior Ministry spokesman earlier had told CNN this is the type of munition used by Spanish security forces at Melilla. The spherical rubber-type bullets, about the size of a golf ball, are intended to cause bruises rather than penetrate the skin. Spain's largest-circulation newspaper, El Pais, reported Friday that Moroccan officials denied the allegations of forced mass movements of sub-Saharan Africans, from the northern coastal area far to the southern desert near Algeria. In another development on Friday, Spain's cabinet approved a 3 million euro ($3.6 million) aid package, to be split evenly between Melilla and Ceuta -- with a combined population of about 150,000. "We hope it will compensate the effort by both cities (Melilla and Ceuta) to deal with illegal immigration," Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega told a nationally televised news conference after the Cabinet meeting. She had visited both Spanish enclaves on Thursday, meeting with security officials and also with some of the immigrants, who have overflowed local immigration facilities. In Melilla, there are about 2,000 illegal immigrants from sub-Sahara Africa in and around the immigration center there designed to accommodate only 500 people, Mellila's president said. The number of immigrants in Ceuta was not immediately available. Five immigrants died last week in a single night trying to cross into Ceuta. Two of the dead were on the Spanish side and three others on the Moroccan side. A Spanish investigation said that those with bullet wounds had been shot by Moroccan forces, because the Spanish forces did not use live ammunition. The deputy prime minister also said that Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos would go to Morocco next Monday to seek agreements in three areas: protecting the borders and preventing mass immigrant assaults, investigating and arresting "mafias" involved in the human trafficking of would-be immigrants, and providing more aid to the immigrants themselves. Spain also announced on Thursday the prompt installation of a new protective barrier on the Moroccan side of the fence, consisting of a series of flexible cables that would have the effect of preventing someone from easily crossing the fence. The mass assaults, involving hundreds of would-be immigrants rushing the fence en masse, with homemade wooden ladders, in theory would be halted by this three-dimensional maze-like use of cables, which permit someone who gets tangled up to move back, but not to easily move forward, an Interior Ministry statement said. The aim is to provide an efficient prevention system that does not hurt the immigrants, as is the case now with razor wire along the fence that has caused numerous cuts and abrasions to the immigrants, the Interior Ministry spokesman said. 
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