A migrant boy with plastic bottles tied to himself arrived at Spanish enclave Ceuta on Wednesday (May 19) after swimming across the Spain-Morocco border.
Reuters footage showed soldiers talking to the visably distressed boy from the shore before he ran onto El Tarajal beach and attempted to scale a wall of rocks.
Around two-thirds of the roughly 8,000 migrants who made it to the enclave – and who Spanish authorities said included unaccompanied children as young as seven – have been expelled, the interior ministry in Madrid said.
Many who were sent back said they were determined to head for Ceuta again and, as dense afternoon fog descended, hundreds of young men made a fresh attempt to approach the roughly six-meter-high metal border fence before being repelled by Moroccan police.
On the northern tip of Morocco across from Gibraltar and with a population of 80,000, the enclave has periodically been a magnet for refugees seeking a quick way into Europe, but its popularity has waned in recent years as Moroccan authorities cracked down on border traffic.
