The Spanish government plans to build 10-meter-high (32-feet) cylindrical walls around its North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla to stop raids by migrants and individual attempts to enter the country, the Italian daily Il Giornale reported.
These are set to be the highest fences against migrants in the world, with the U.S. border wall standing at 30 feet in some sections.
The new border structures should significantly increase the efficiency of the existing fencing around these two Spanish cities on the North African coast, which is only three, somewhere over four meters high and topped by barbed wire. Their construction was financed by the government of former Prime Minister Luis Zapatero.
To prevent injuries to migrants who may be able to reach the top of the wall, it will be equipped with a steel cylinder, which should also make it impossible to cross the wall.
The project has now been unveiled after a crowd of about 300 migrants attacked the Melilla enclave on Thursday morning. According to local security forces, about 50 migrants managed to enter Spanish territory, which also means they made on to European Union soil.
According to the authorities, the migrants were mostly from sub-Saharan Africa. In April, a group of about 250 people tried to cross the fence as well.
Since January, about 11,500 migrants have arrived on Spanish territory through various routes, many of whom arrived by boat in the Canary Islands.
Spain’s Canary Islands, which lay approximately 100 kilometers off the West African coast, are fast becoming a top destination for migrants despite the dangers involved with reaching them.
