The image of tens of thousands of people suddenly entering through the gates of Europe in Ceuta is very useful for the narrative of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, whose Administration has long been warning of an “invasion” of undocumented immigrants as a consequence of the weakness of the European Union.
The Kingdom of Morocco has two great allies – the United States and Israel –, two great enemies – Algeria and the Polisario Front – and a tradition: testing Spain at very well-chosen moments in order to verify our limits and simultaneously display its power. To the tableau must be added the day chosen by Rabat for the show of force of sending, as if nothing, about 50,000 young people to a Spanish city of 83,000 inhabitants: the celebration of the ascension to the throne of Mohamed VI, whose public appearance on Thursday revealed his poor health, which fosters and anticipates underground struggles in the Majzén, the opaque elite that forms the court and takes its name from the royal residence in Rabat.
Thousands of the more than 40,000 immigrants who entered Ceuta irregularly yesterday, due to Morocco’s permissiveness, have begun returning to their country throughout the morning of this Friday, after realizing that the autonomous city, completely overwhelmed, does not have the capacity to respond to them. The same point where they arrived by swimming or on foot, the El Tarajal border breakwater, has become an open entry gate, because the flow of entries does not stop despite the military deployment, and an exit, through which to leave Spain, once it has been confirmed that they have nowhere to eat or sleep.
“The State is here. We defend security and coexistence in Ceuta as we would defend it on the perimeter of the M-30 in Madrid. We are all one,” said the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, on Friday during the appearance he made from the Palace of the Assembly of Ceuta, alongside the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, after a meeting with the commanders of the State security forces at the Tarajal border, and also holding a meeting with the president of the autonomous city, Juan Jesús Vivas.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is traveling to Ceuta to follow ‘in situ’ the migratory crisis affecting the autonomous city, to which thousands of people from Morocco arrived this Thursday, of whom at least 18 have lost their lives at sea and which has completely overwhelmed its reception capacity.
The migration crisis that has erupted again in Ceuta, this time with a flood of more than 40,000 people according to initial estimates, and already with about twenty deaths, “has its origin in an interpretation of the Supreme Court’s decision, which prohibits the return of people who enter by swimming, which has been exploited by mafias and criminal organizations to take advantage of the extreme vulnerability of migrants.”
Ceuta is, this Friday, many cities in one, after yesterday, in a matter of hours, thousands of Moroccans – the vast majority young, but also families – crossed the breakwater of El Tarajal to set foot on Spanish territory. The autonomous city looks like a dawn at any music festival, with hundreds of youngsters lying on the grass in parks or on the beach sand, sleeping in swimwear, with no more luggage to protect than some plastic bags. It also looks like a besieged city, with Army vehicles patrolling back and forth, giving a warlike tint to the biggest bilateral migration crisis between Spain and Morocco since 2021. Another face is that of a city running at half capacity, like on a holiday, with neighbors in their homes, and their bars and shops closed: yesterday afternoon they decided to pull down the shutters amid the uncertainty generated by the massive entry that could shatter any previous statistics.
The Supreme Court ruled on July 8 that “hot returns” are not allowed for migrants intercepted at sea who attempt to enter the cities of Ceuta and Melilla by swimming. A few weeks later, the autonomous city has been experiencing a massive influx, for days now, of thousands of migrants, mostly Moroccan, many of them swimming. The Ministry of the Interior rules out that the Alaouite authorities have ceased to carry out their surveillance functions. Yesterday, the 30th, was Throne Day in Morocco.
The Beni Enzar border, the only operational one between Spain and Morocco in Melilla, remains closed, according to the Government delegation in the autonomous city, which has asked the public not to go to the border perimeter in order not to hinder the work of the Security Forces and Corps.
The units in charge of border control in Ceuta have recovered from the water the lifeless bodies of at least 12 people in the last 24 hours. There are already 40 foreigners found dead in Ceuta waters in the attempt to swim across from Morocco so far this year.
