Spanish police began clearing hundreds of migrants from the beaches of Ceuta on Friday morning, moving them into a newly erected tented site in the port area of the Spanish territory in north Africa. The operation started at about 07:00 local time, 05:00 GMT, and the government-owned news agency Efe reported that more than 3,000 people were being transferred along a designated 2km route, with over 170 officers deployed, including drone technicians. Officers struggled to hold back crowds jostling for a place at the camp, which has capacity for 1,700 people, after weeks in which migrants had been living on the shoreline. Shots were heard, with reports that police fired into the air, and some migrants broke through the cordon, with video showing young men running in the darkness before Efe reported that the situation was brought under control quickly. The aim of the operation is to concentrate people in facilities where they can be identified and cared for while their administrative status is determined individually. Most of the 72,000 migrants who breached the border from Morocco in July have returned, but more than 13,000 are believed to remain in the 18.5 sq km enclave, where residents have voiced safety fears, destroyed shelters and blocked aid deliveries. The crossings followed a ruling by Spain's Supreme Court that migrants stopped at sea on their way to Ceuta could not be summarily returned to Morocco; social media accounts then spread misinformation and offered paid help to cross the border, and at least 100 people died, according to local authorities. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, accused by the opposition of having been warned in advance, insists the influx was impossible to predict, and is simultaneously handling extended reciprocal border controls with Italy and his bilateral relationship with Morocco.