Journalists tell me that they continue reporting from Ceuta a month and a half later, that the situation in the city remains “tremendous” and that they end every day “with their stomachs upset.” They tell me it is true that every day there are fewer people still “lying” on the streets, because in the last two weeks temporary reception centers have been opened – just yesterday those who were sleeping at the doors of the provisional facilities in Loma Colmenar were taken to a new location in the Reina neighborhood – but that the situation of those who remain is “getting worse and worse.”
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That worsening situation of the migrants who entered Ceuta at the end of July – whose number is unknown, but may be around 8,000 to 10,000 – is making coexistence in the city’s neighborhoods unbearable. Those who entered through the Tarajal beach knew where to go and went to neighborhoods with more Muslim residents, like themselves, who welcomed them in solidarity, but a month and a half later, they can no longer cope.
The situation of Ceuta’s residents is what it is with or without declassified papers
In the reports by colleagues it is significant that, when they offer testimonies, those who speak usually have the name Mohamed, which shows closeness to those who have arrived. But no one who has lived in Ceuta since birth, or for many years, can get used to having people sleeping at their doorsteps, who relieve themselves in the street because they have no place to do so, or who fight because the situation they live in causes frustration and hatred that ends in fights among themselves. They are moved from place to place, but the neighbors of the new camp also reject them. It recalls that tendency to ask for more prisons, more centers to care for drug addicts, as long as they are not at their doorsteps.
With this situation, hard to imagine if you are not in Ceuta, it is easy to assume that they care very little about the resignation of the chief of staff of the Government delegate in the autonomous city, due to disagreements with his superior, who claims to have warned him of the CNI’s alert that a migrant entry was being prepared for July 30 that would surpass those that had occurred so far, whether or not they guessed the magnitude of the avalanche. Nor do I think the migrants or the residents of Ceuta who have the newcomers at their doorsteps have been very interested in knowing the exact terms of the messages, or the vehicle used by the CNI, the Civil Guard, or the National Police to issue the alerts. Their situation, both of them, is what it is, with or without declassified papers.
That measure, with which the Executive intended to save its narrative, has only served to create discomfort in everyone, from government members to security forces and intelligence and information services, and the narrative remains the same. A month and a half already writing about this tragedy seems like an obligation. If it did not exist, the debate about the Supreme Court rulings denying the vote to the grandchildren of exiles would be a scandal as big as some decisions by Trump provoke in us, even if provisional. If what happened in Ceuta did not occur, which makes me feel obliged to remind that migrants remain in shameful conditions, I could talk about the contrast between what is seen there and what Madrid displays with its great F-1 Grand Prix, with tickets priced from 544 euros for the three-day pass up to 1,541. Yes, it may be a demagogic note, and I know the profits generated in Madrid will be around 450 million euros, but the opulence of some is obscene compared to what is lived in Ceuta.
I do this so that the protagonists are not forgotten, who in this case are not the politicians, even if it costs them their jobs.
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