MOROCCO-Morocco’s authorities said it arrested 58 African migrants on Monday while they were trying to enter, by force, the Spanish enclave of Melilla from the Moroccan territories around it.

They said on Tuesday in Rabat that over 150 sub-Saharan African migrants tried to force their way to Melilla in the Mediterranean by climbing the barbed wire of seven metres height.

Eight persons were injured and taken to nearby hospital and they left the hospital after being treated.

The authority said 11 African migrants drowned when a group of 200 migrants tried to swim to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from the Moroccan territories on February 6.

It added that thousands of migrants, fleeing poverty and unrest in Africa, tried to enter Europe each year via Morocco, either by land into Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish port enclaves near the Moroccan territory, or by sea to Spain or Italy, often in flimsy vessels.

It said after many European countries and Morocco tightened security control in the strait of Gibraltar, Morocco became a host country of a burgeoning migrant population.