evidence: Spain’s new interior minister has announced that dismantling barbed wire fences that separate the two Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco is among his "main priorities". [...] The port town of Ceuta and its larger sister city Melilla sit around 250 miles apart on the Mediterranean coast of Africa, and their Spanish past traces back more than 400 years, Slate report. For centuries, Ceuta and Melilla were vital port cities, offering protection for Spanish ships and acting as trading posts between Europe and Africa. In the 1930s, Spanish troops garrisoned in the two cities played a major role in future dictator Francisco Franco’s uprising against their government.