Moroccan troops, attempting to prevent illegal immigrants from reaching a Spanish enclave, killed six Africans in clashes in northern Morocco last night, a local government official said today.
Spanish police said earlier a joint operation between Spanish and Moroccan police and troops had repelled more than 500 migrants trying to cross into Spain's North African outpost of Melilla before dawn.
Just one man had entered the enclave in the latest mass storming of Europe's southernmost border, they said.
"The assault of rare violence has forced security forces to respond in self-defence. Some 290 migrants were arrested and six among the assailants were dead," Nador province governor Abdellah Bendhiba said in a statement carried by state news agency MAP.
Bendhiba said 400 migrants stormed troop surveillance posts in Gourougou forest in the north of the country during the night.
Gourougou forest, where hundreds of migrants often hide before trying to reach Spain's Ceuta and Melilla enclaves in Morocco, lies on the outskirts of Nador, about 500 km (300 miles) north of Rabat.
Spanish human rights group Asociacion Pro-Derechos Humanos said there had been more deaths than Morocco said and hundreds had been injured.
"There are not six, there are quite a few more," Secretary Jose Alonso said, citing Moroccan medical sources.