Four immigrants were killed overnight when an estimated 500 Africans stormed the border fencing separating Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, news reports said Thursday.

Officials confirmed two deaths on the Spanish side of the border. Spanish media reports quoted Moroccan hospital sources as saying that two others had died on their side of the frontier.

Spanish officials said one of those killed on the Spanish side had injuries in the throat and the other in the thorax.

Police sources said one of the victims appeared to have died after his throat became stuck on barbed wire surrounding the fence, while the other was crushed to death during the stampede.

Officials launched an inquiry into the case. The nationalities of the four victims, who were described as sub-Saharans, were not immediately known.

The Ceuta hospital attended to 42 people, most whom had slight injuries. Fifteen people were reported injured on the Moroccan side.

Using makeshift ladders, the would-be immigrants attempted to scale the 8.2-kilometres-long border fence at several places simultaneously. An initial group distracted police by trying to break through a heavily guarded area.

An estimated 80 immigrants managed to enter Ceuta, where the immigrant reception centre was struggling to cope with the influx.

Defence Minister Jose Bono said the government had ordered the army to help protect the frontiers of Ceuta and the enclave Melilla further east.

If the four deaths are confirmed, it would raise this year's death toll to at least seven in the two Spanish enclaves on the Moroccan coast.

In Melilla, three immigrants have died in varying circumstances in August and September while attempting to cross the border.

Police have been accused of rough treatment in repelling immigrants, but officials denied allegations that police had accidentally killed one of the victims, a 17-year-old Cameroonian, during clashes.

The storming in Ceuta followed two similar incidents in Melilla on Tuesday. Police in riot gear pushed back the entrants, about 300 of whom got through to Melilla.

Some 12,000 Africans have participated in 26 massive attempts to storm Melilla this year, but Ceuta officials said they had not expected the same to happen there.

The co-ordinated attempt to breach the Ceuta border was described as the biggest in the recent years.

Thousands of illegal immigrants from Morocco, western and central Africa arrive in Spain every year. Increasing numbers began travelling to the Canary Islands since Spain reinforced the surveillance of its continental coast a few years ago.

Source: China Daily