The Spanish police are also dispatching a hundred officers to the North African exclave of Melilla.

In just two days, almost as many migrants had crossed the double border fence there as in the whole of the previous year.

Almost 2,500 men tried to enter the Spanish city on Wednesday and around 1,500 on Thursday.

According to official figures, a total of more than 800 people made it to the Spanish side.

Most of them came from sub-Saharan countries, which apparently made their way with great brutality.

More than 60 officers were injured.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

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It is a "major crisis that has never existed in Melilla before" and the situation is "worrying," said a government spokeswoman in Madrid.

Similar numbers had not been seen since last May, when almost 10,000 Moroccans entered the Spanish exclave after Moroccan border police failed to stop them.

In Madrid there is growing concern that the Moroccan leadership could once again use the migrants as a means of political pressure in the dispute over the former Spanish colony in Western Sahara.

In February, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares praised the good security cooperation at the borders: With Moroccan support, up to a thousand migrants were stopped in Ceuta and Melilla, he said: "Without Morocco's cooperation, this would be very difficult to achieve.

This makes Morocco a strategic partner for Spain and also for Europe.

But since January, the number of migrants leaving Morocco for the Canary Islands has increased again.

"Moroccan passivity" at the borders

According to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, almost 5,500 people landed on 115 boats in the Canary Islands by the beginning of March.

That was almost twice as many as in the first two months of last year.

Throughout Spain there have been more than 8,000 migrants this year.

More than half of the newcomers are Moroccans, who set sail from the Moroccan coast in their boats.

In previous years, there were more citizens from African countries, some of whom made their way from Mauritania and Senegal.

The Spanish press on Friday quoted government and intelligence sources as saying Moroccan "passiveness" at the borders is aimed at persuading Spain to change course on the Western Sahara conflict.

According to its plan presented in 2007, Morocco wants to grant autonomy to Western Sahara and not let the residents decide their future in a referendum.

In December, the federal government praised the Moroccan autonomy plan as an important contribution to an agreement.

As a result, Morocco ended the serious diplomatic crisis that had lasted since March.

While Spain has not yet been prepared to take such a step, the German foreign minister and her Moroccan counterpart announced in a joint statement in mid-February that they would resume cooperation "in all areas and involving all stakeholders".