RABAT, September 3. /TASS/. Nearly 4,000 people who intended to illegally get into the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta on the African Mediterranean coast have been deported from the Moroccan city of Tangier located several kilometers from Ceuta, Moroccan law enforcement agencies said.

"In the past 20 days alone, the Tangier authorities have arrested and expelled more than 4,000 people from the region who had gathered in the city and its environs and were planning to cross into Ceuta," they said. "Most of those detained and deported from Tangier were young or minors, as well as migrants from African countries south of the Sahara.

"From 150 to 30 potential illegal migrant are arrested in one day, and up to 400 on the days when calls for a mass illegal crossing of the border emerge on social media," law enforcement said, adding that all the arrested Moroccans "are transported from the northern region to their places of permanent residence after their identities are verified."

According to earlier reports, the Moroccan authorities detained and deported from areas adjacent to Ceuta those who had tried to illegally reach Ceuta after the migration crisis in late July - early August. This figure "does not include those who entered Ceuta illegally during the mass border crossings and voluntarily returned to Moroccan territory or were returned as a result of coordination between Morocco and Spain," law enforcement said.

Tens of thousands of migrants managed to reach Spain’s Ceuta by swimming or walking around the breakwater separating the city from Morocco in late July. The Moroccan interior ministry said that around 40,000 people had tried to illegally reach Ceuta, and 1,135 others - Melilla. According to the Spanish side, around 72,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta, with nearly 70,000 of then having returned to Morocco. Data on the fatalities during the migration crisis vary: there are significant discrepancies between official figures and estimates from human rights organizations and local sources. The Moroccan side has officially reported 11 deaths, but according to the nongovernmental human rights organization Caminando Fronteras, at least 141 migrants died while attempting to reach the territory of the autonomous city.