Enlarge image
Spanish police and migrants in Melilla
Photo: Javier Bernardo/AP
According to media reports, at least 18 people died during a rush of up to 2,000 people on the border fence between Morocco and the Spanish North African exclave of Melilla.
This was announced by the authorities in the Moroccan province of Nador on Saturday night.
Five deaths had previously been reported.
13 other people had died from their injuries while attempting to cross the meter-high border fence, it was said.
In addition, another 63 people and around 140 Moroccan police officers were injured.
The Moroccan Interior Ministry accused the migrants of using violence.
They come from sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the ministry, 133 people managed to climb the two parallel, six-metre-high fences and get onto Spanish territory.
They were then taken to an emergency center.
The border fences around Melilla are equipped with barbed wire, video cameras and guard platforms.
Images in Spanish media on Friday showed people lying exhausted on the sidewalk, some with bleeding hands and torn clothes.
Videos posted online showed others running through the streets of Melilla, smiling, singing and dancing.
They were taken to an emergency center.
Morocco became independent from France and Spain in 1956.
Nevertheless, Spain continues to hold two exclaves there: Melilla and Ceuta, 250 kilometers further west on the Strait of Gibraltar.
Both are claimed by Rabat.
Hope for a better life in Europe
In the vicinity of the two areas, often tens of thousands of Africans, mainly from sub-Saharan countries, are waiting for a chance to enter the EU.
Usually several hundred people try to surprise the border officials and get across the border.
sak/dpa