Spain has requested the support of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) and Europol from the European Commission for the triage work of immigrants who remain in Ceuta irregularly. This was communicated by the Ministry of the Interior this Friday, whose head, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has sent this request to the Director-General for Migration and Home Affairs of the commission, Beate Gminder.
The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, Elma Saiz, announced this Friday in Congress an increase of up to 44.5 million euros to support and expand humanitarian aid in Ceuta, following the irregular entry of “around 72,000” migrants from Morocco on July 30 and 31. She also urged not to forget that behind the numbers there are “stories of suffering” and “dozens of deaths” during the border crossings.
Italy is preparing to extend border controls on passengers arriving by plane and boat from Spain. The temporary suspension of Schengen between the two countries, which came into effect on August 1 due to the Ceuta migration crisis, had an initial duration of one month. According to the communication sent by the authorities in Rome to the European Commission, it expires on August 31, so everything should return to normal starting Tuesday.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has attributed the jump over the fence at the Ceuta border on July 30 from Morocco to the incitement caused by misinformation used by very interested actors whom he identified as “the reactionary international.”
In his first public appearance at the start of the new political term, the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, wanted to send a message of firmness in the face of the multiple and colossal challenges that Catalonia faces. In his speech during the working sessions that the Catalan Executive is holding this Friday and Saturday at the Monestir de les Avellanes in Os de Balaguer (Lleida), the head of the Government warned that an intense political term is coming in which he will make “decisions” that are transcendental, that “will shape and determine the next decade,” and that will generate “noise,” confrontation,” gesticulation and “even falsehoods, on the part of the opposition.
The National Security System Situation Committee (SISN) unanimously agreed this Friday on a new list of spaces to relocate migrants who remain without accommodation in Ceuta, on a day marked by the escalation of violence recorded the previous day around the settlements. The body also agreed on the need to unanimously condemn the violence to preserve coexistence in the city and highlighted the importance of ensuring the distribution of food to all people in vulnerable situations.
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, made a call for “calm” in Ceuta this Friday after social tension increased in recent hours. In this regard, in his appearance at his own request before the Interior Committee of the Congress, Marlaska called for the “cessation of any kind of violence” since “that is not the way.” “I express my absolute empathy with the citizens, but violence is not the way,” he emphasized.
The spark that puts Ceuta on the brink of social explosion began to ignite yesterday. Literally. After days in which tension was starting to overflow the autonomous city, Benítez beach became the image that depicts the state of the autonomous city almost a month after the massive entry of more than 80,000 people. A cordon of riot police separates two realities: in front of the police, hundreds of Ceutans increasingly fed up shout for the immediate expulsion of the “invaders”; behind the officers, also hundreds of immigrants, defiant, show their intention to resist, not to return to their country. The smoke, like a pressure cooker about to blow up, envelops the beach. The smoke comes from the huts of the camp that a group of neighbors set on fire, after destroying it. Neither side is willing to give in anymore. The protesters leave, the Police deploy, the Maghrebis rebuild the settlement.
The former Prime Minister, José María Aznar, has visited the autonomous city of Ceuta and has asserted national sovereignty while criticizing the Government for allowing the “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity.”
The Government, through the Ministry of Youth and Childhood, and the autonomous communities have unanimously approved the extraordinary credit of 25 million euros announced by the central Executive last Tuesday for the care of migrant children in Ceuta. It was the only formal agenda item of the Sectoral Commission on Childhood and Adolescence held this Thursday in Madrid, chaired by the minister in charge, Sira Rego. But the ministry has also proposed the transfer of around 500 migrant minor girls hosted in Ceuta to NGOs on the Peninsula, with the aim of addressing the situation of “urgency and special vulnerability” of these minors, while mitigating the political controversy surrounding the distribution of immigrants and the complaints from the territories, which denounce the “saturation” situation experienced by their reception systems.
