Melilla, Spain

Model of original Melilla Fortress

Storming Spain's Razor-Wire Fence: In episode one of our series, VICE News correspondent Milène Larsson travels to the border between Morocco and Spain, where West Africans in their thousands storm the razor-wire-clad fences.  - from a blurb for a VICE video.

Cool, continental drift has accelerated into overdrive! Europe and Africa are colliding, tsunamis and earthquakes run rampant! Real-life disaster movies in the making, film at eleven.
    Uh, no, not really. Morocco and Spain are still separated by the Mediterranean Sea. The closest they ever get is the strait of Gibraltar. Gibraltar, now that's fortuitous. Seems Spain has a city on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, much like England has the rock of Gibraltar on the coast of Spain. Actually Spain has a couple of cities in Morocco. Naturally, Morocco thinks these cities should belong to them. Spain disagrees, hence the fence.
    Melilla has been there a long time, and it's been Spanish for quite a while. Thought this was curious:

General Francisco Franco used the city as one of his staging grounds for his Nationalist rebellion in 1936, starting the Spanish Civil War. A statue of him – the last statue of Franco in Spain – is still prominently featured. - Wikipedia

I've been wondering about refugees in general. Seems like if someone is tearing up your homeland you might want to try and do something about it. Standing up by yourself against thugs is a good way to get yourself killed, so I can see how exit stage left might be reasonable choice. With a little organizing and some money for weapons, you'd think the people could form a militia that could eliminate these thugs. But that doesn't happen. Why is that? Capable organizers do not exist, or they are too busy combating other organized militias to worry about a few bands of thugs. And if people leave, well that's great, gets rid of a bunch of people and saves us the trouble of killing them.
    I am beginning to see how a state religion could be a good thing.

Update August 2015. Added pictures. Added the picture of the fortress because I like models. Added the picture of Franco because there is movement afoot to get rid of all traces of Franco and I thought we should remember what evil looks like.