Migrant boy uses plastic bottles to stay afloat as he desperately tries to reach Spanish enclave

Distressing footage shows a distraught migrant boy who has tied plastic bottles to his waist in a desperate attempt to stay afloat as he swims to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

Visibly distressed, the boy paddles towards the shore from where a Spanish soldier calls out to him. The boy is then seen clambering onto the beach, removing the bottles from around his waist and trying to scale a wall. But he is intercepted and led off by soldiers.

Thousands of migrants have in recent days swum around a border fence that juts out into the sea separating Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco.