Spain says deadly migrant rush an 'attack' on its territory

MADRID - The Spanish prime minister on Saturday described a deadly migrant rush on the enclave of Melilla from Morocco as an attack on Spain's"territorial integrity", as human rights activists demanded an investigation.

Moroccan officials said late Friday that 13 migrants had died of injuries sustained in the incursion, in addition to five confirmed dead earlier in the day.Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told journalists in Madrid that"if anyone is responsible for everything that happened at the border, it is the mafias that traffic in human beings."

Images on Spanish media on Friday showed exhausted migrants lying on the pavement in Melilla, some with bloodied hands and torn clothes. Friday's was the first such mass incursion since Spain mended a year-long rift by backing Morocco's autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara region, scrapping its decades-long stance of neutrality.

Rabat wants Western Sahara to have autonomous status under Moroccan sovereignty but the Polisario Front insists on a UN-supervised referendum on self-determination as agreed in a 1991 ceasefire deal. Sanchez warned earlier this month that"Spain will not tolerate any use of the tragedy of illegal immigration as a means of pressure".

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