The Temporary Stay Center for Immigrants (CETI) in Ceuta is a powder keg about to explode. Again. With a capacity of 512 places, although it currently houses 700 people, hundreds of immigrants who crossed into Spain this week with Morocco’s permissiveness are increasingly nervously waiting their turn to access the facility, where they can find something as basic as water or food, which they do not find on the street. The National Police try to keep them at bay, but desperation is palpable in the atmosphere of the area that has become the current hot spot of the migration crisis.
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On the outskirts of the city, the only way to reach the CETI is on foot. Taxi drivers refuse to approach, not even to the perimeter established by the security device of police and military. Benítez beach, near the facility, already reveals part of the situation, which borders on unsanitary conditions. Dozens of sub-Saharan Africans, in the shade of the trees that mark the beginning of the beach: Sudanese, Palestinians, Yemenis, and a few Moroccans who, unlike most of their compatriots who have left Spain, resist leaving. They also hide in the nearby hills to the CETI, where improvised camps can be seen sheltering from the long nights outdoors. They have a waiting number, with which they will be able to access the interior of the facility as places become available with the departure of other people to the peninsula.
This Sunday the Police try to avoid the moments of tension experienced last night, when they had to intervene against an attempted forced entry by desperate people from outside. Police sources do not doubt that it could happen again as the hours pass, when thirst and hunger continue to press. Zacarías, who speaks broken Spanish because in his native Casablanca he “read news in Spanish,” denounces that although he has some savings, he has not been able to buy anything for three days. “Here all the people are good, but we do not eat. What are we going to do then?” he asks after recalling that it took him no more than 20 minutes to go around the breakwater that gave him access to Spain. He says he made the jump because he wants “a good life.”
A thousand people wait near the CETI in extreme conditions
In the vicinity of the CETI there are at least a thousand people in a critical situation. With wounds all over their bodies, showing signs of dehydration, barefoot and with no more clothes than the swimsuit with which they swam to El Tarajal beach. They are almost all men. It is difficult to find any women. And to the desperation they add uncertainty. “What is going to happen to me? I don’t know anything,” writes a young man in the mobile phone translator to make himself understood. No one gives him an answer, while the local residents begin to report the conflict that is being generated in the area.
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A Ceutan who prefers to remain anonymous says he has never seen so many settlements before. He asks for surveillance reinforcements on the same day the government delegate in Ceuta has reported that three thousand personnel, including members of the State Security Forces and military, are deployed in the city to guarantee security and will continue “as long as necessary.” Ceuta has gone from having 696 agents of the National Police and Civil Guard to having 1,042, which represents an increase of 33.3%, to which 2,000 Armed Forces personnel must be added.
At nightfall, the same neighbor recounts, the immigrants make fires to warm up during the early morning, although any carelessness can set the forest on fire, in a time prone to fires. “Coexistence,” he warns, “is about to explode.”
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