From northern Morocco, Europe is just a short sail away, across the Gibraltar Strait to the Spanish coast, making the country a major transit point for illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.
Last week, reports said nearly 500 would-be immigrants tried to crash through metal barriers dividing northern Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Melilla. Rabat acknowledged the attempted break-in but said only about 60 people were involved.
A mere handful of people, sub-Saharans nicknamed "harraga", burners, who are trying to emigrate to Europe, managed to break through to the enclave, authorities said, while the others were pushed back into Morocco.
Some 700 people from Mali, Cameroon, Niger, Senegal and Nigeria are camped out on hills overlooking the city, according to Melilla authorities. Some have been there for several years, and have tried over and over to cross the border.
Both the port city of Melilla and a similar enclave, Ceuta, face a steady tide of people trying to enter the European Union - whether on a perilous boat crassing on stowed away on a truck.
"There are about 5,000 sub-Saharans living in the Moroccan forests around Tangiers, located on the Gibraltar Strait, and near the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta," according to Khalid Jemmah, head of the Association of Families of Victims of Illegal Immigration (AFVIC).
Jemmah has tried to raise the alarm over the situation, with growing numbers of people sheltering in the woods for months at a time, in living conditions that he described as "ever more precarious".
"Those who fail to cross (into Europe) are joined by new would-be emigrants," he said, adding that they faced harsh treatment from the authorities, whether caught in Morocco or in Spain.
Traffickers, many of them also from sub-Saharan Africa, cruise these transit areas looking for passengers for a perilous illegal crossing to Europe.
A place on one of these makeshift boats currently costs around 1,000 euros (1,200 dollars) - a hefty fee considering the boats are often caught in storms or turned away from the European shore.
Further south, thousands of people try each year to cross into Spain's Canary Islands, another favoured point of entry into the EU. More than 3,300 people were stopped between January and July this year as they tried to enter the islands illegally.
Many prefer attempting the 160-kilometre (100-mile) crossing to the Canary Islands, which lie off Morocco's Atlantic coast, considering it less risky than trying to cross into southern Spain via the narrow but heavily policed Strait of Gibraltar.
Either way, thousands succeed in reaching Europe each year, but at a heavy cost - in 2003, more than 500 people died at sea while trying to reach Spain.
The Canary Islands were formerly seen as an easy way into Europe, thanks to quieter seas and a more relaxed police presence. But Spain and Morocco agreed early this year to launch a joint crackdown on illegal immigration - a source of considerable tension between the two countries.
Spanish and Moroccan police helicopters now patrol desert areas to spot groups of people bound for the Atlantic coast, while a joint maritime surveillance operation in place between the Canary Islands and the western Sahara.
In El-Ayoun, the Moroccan town closest to the Canary Islands, would-be immigrants are placed in a detention centre while awaiting judgement, and from there are often escorted to the Algerian border in the north-east, or to the southern border with Mauritania.