Yesterday, thousands of young Moroccan men – as well as women, children and non-Moroccans – entered Ceuta, one of Spain’s tiny North African enclaves, swimming around a breakwater or breaching border fences. Police sources estimate that so far more than 40,000 – some reports are suggesting 50,000 – people have already entered Spanish territory during this wave. Today the influx continues and the situation is critical.
The temporary stay centre for immigrants, and other emergency reception and health facilities are overwhelmed. This morning El País, Spain’s centre-left newspaper of record, reports ‘hundreds of young migrants huddled on the damp grass in the parks, sleeping with hardly any clothes on’. The city, with a population of approximately 84,000, ‘has become a makeshift dormitory’. The civil guard has so far recovered the bodies of 19 migrants who died whilst attempting to swim into the enclave.
Spanish army units with armoured vehicles have been deployed alongside the civil guards and national police. For the time being, they are said to be simply monitoring the situation, keeping order and directing the flow of people.
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska are travelling to Ceuta to meet with the city’s president, Juan Jesús Vivas, and its security forces. President Vivas has publicly called on Madrid to declare a national emergency.
