Jim Lawley
With Spain still reeling from the extraordinary scenes in Ceuta, the country’s Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez has decamped to La Mareta, the government’s palatial retreat on Lanzarote. Before beginning his holiday, he made a brief visit to the exclave, where, according to Madrid, some 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco and the local authorities say 88 bodies were recovered.
Nearly a week later, Ceuta’s government says 3,000 to 5,000 migrants remain; Madrid puts the figure at 2,500. Around 400 are still living on El Trampolín beach, sheltering under blankets and makeshift structures. Food and water are now being distributed, but provision has been patchy: some say they went up to five days without food. Sanitation remains rudimentary. The Interior Ministry has confirmed that two people suffered minor knife wounds in separate incidents; one arrest has been made.
Critics in Spain and elsewhere in Europe have blamed the disaster on the ‘pull effect’ of Sánchez’s recent mass amnesty for illegal immigrants. The regularisation was initially presented as benefiting roughly half a million people. But nearly 1.2 million have applied.
Clinging to power has become another of Sánchez’s moral duties
