Hundreds of illegal migrants mobbed José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, as he visited a detention camp yesterday in the Spanish enclave of Melilla. The north African frontier town has become a symbol of the gulf separating affluent Europeans from hungry Africans.

Like desperate petitioners, the camp's 800 residents surrounded Mr Zapatero and demanded the two things with the power to transform their lives: permission to reside in Spain and a work permit. "Papeles, presidente, residencia, presidente," they chanted. The women in the camp (almost all of them carried young children) launched volley after volley of piercing, ululating cries.