By 10 a.m. one recent day, Zahra Kechache, 65, who has carried packages for more than a decade, was having an asthma attack. Nora el-Koukhou, 39, who has five children and a husband in jail, was crying after being crushed between bales in the corridor leading to the border turnstiles. One woman was lying in a ditch wailing, blood trickling from her head.

“The men make this impossible,” said Mrs. Rmamda, who has four children and a blind husband to feed. “This job is so dangerous now. I’m afraid I will break an arm or a leg in there.”

Not until the 1990s was there any barrier of note between Morocco and Melilla. Before that, people and goods moved back and forth easily. But membership in the European Union changed all that. Spain was expected to strengthen its border controls, and it did.

It was during those years, that the job of these women was born. Women would come to Melilla early in the morning and carry the packages back home. In the beginning, they had little competition, the bales were smaller and so was the demand for goods.

These days, the packages can weigh up to 220 pounds, though most of the women carry 150 to 175 pounds. The border is open only four days a week, and even when they show up, they may not always get a package. The Guardia Civil, Spain’s military police force, keeps an ambulance on hand. It is needed three or four times a month, said Juan Antonio Martin Rivera, a spokesman for the Guardia Civil here.

Spanish officials say that there is little they can do about what goes on at the border, even if it is on Spanish soil. Most days, only seven Guardia Civil officers are assigned to watch over the carriers at the crossing. Most of the crowd control is left to the men in the yellow caps, who have been hired by Moroccan merchants to keep order, Mr. Martin said.