MELILLA, Spain - The stairway to heaven for desperate Africans is a long, crooked and arduous one that culminates in a rickety, homemade ladder propped against a fence topped with razor wire. Behind them is the poverty and corruption of some of the world's poorest countries. Luring them to risk their lives are two tiny outposts of Europe perched on the tip of Morocco, a country so close to Spain that on a clear day it can be seen across the Strait of Gibraltar. "For us, it is like the promised land," said Abraham Pintum, 20, from the Central African Republic, who was among an estimated 300 would-be immigrants scampering up ladders and hurling themselves into Spain this week, getting their first, cherished taste of Europe. They were the lucky ones in a drama that saw more than 1,000 people rush border crossings in Melilla and Ceuta, another enclave farther west on Morocco's coast. They sought a foothold for a better life, even though what awaits them almost certainly is one without work or residency papers. Five Africans died in a frenzied human avalanche that surged into Ceuta before dawn Thursday. Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said Friday that two bodies found on Spanish soil had bullet wounds, but he did not say who fired the shots. Three other bodies were found on the Moroccan side of the barrier. Spain reinforced the borders of its two enclaves Friday, sending 500 soldiers to patrol the razor-wire fences. Using a borrowed cell phone - coveted like gold at the holding facility housing the arrivals - Pintum telephoned his 17-year-old brother Job, who started dancing upon hearing that Pintum's five-month journey to Melilla had finally ended. "He said he had seen on the news that a wave of Africans made it into Melilla. I told him I was part of it," Pintum said. The travelers have added another twist to ties between two neighbors with a long history of gripes, including fishing rights in Moroccan waters, Spanish-bound drug trafficking, illegal immigration and the very status of Melilla and Ceuta. Ceuta and Melilla have been parts of Spain for centuries and are the European Union's only borders with Africa. Morocco claims sovereignty over both, but Spain says the cities were Spanish even before Morocco gained its independence from France in 1956.