Migrant plight, local anger divide Ceuta
Otman Ianaya risked his life swimming from Morocco to the Spanish territory of Ceuta. One month on, he and thousands of migrants remain stranded, dividing locals in the increasingly tense north African city.
Ianaya, 40, said he plunged into the water with his wife and two young daughters because “there is no work in Morocco” and “I want to build a future in my life.”
They were among the more than 70,000 migrants who crossed the border on July 30 to 31 seeking a better life in Europe, in an unprecedented and deadly surge.
But their dreams quickly came up against a harsh reality in Ceuta—which has one of the European Union’s only two land borders with Africa, along with Spain’s other north African territory of Melilla.
Most of the migrants returned within hours, unable to find shelter, food and water or travel on to mainland Spain.
Many of the thousands who remain in Ceuta continue to eke out a precarious existence as the tiny territory’s resources are overwhelmed, sleeping in the street or on the beach.
Ianaya and his family slept rough until a few days ago, when volunteers provided them with sheets and blankets.
He queues for hours every day to receive food from the Red Cross.
Informal camps
But as the weeks wear on with no end to the crisis in sight, worry and anger are growing among Ceuta’s 84,000 residents who say the government has abandoned them.
Migrants—including unaccompanied children—live in informal camps and roam the streets while the leftist government works to expand emergency accommodation for them.
Isolated episodes of violence have broken out, including fights between migrants, the stoning of a military patrol, and reports of sexual assault.
The situation “has been chaotic, so much so that you can’t go out onto the street,” said Gema Guillen, who participated in a protest on Tuesday against a migrant camp that was set up outside a school.
“If I go out, I look everywhere, I go with fear … with all the news out there, rapes, muggings,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Protesting residents have clashed with the police as they demand the expulsion of the migrants, on one occasion burning their belongings on a beach.
Tens of thousands of people held protests nationwide on Wednesday, the annual Ceuta Day, AFP journalists saw, with 50,000 in central Madrid according to officials.
Not ‘racist’
The conservative and far-right opposition also used the rallies to attack the government over its handling of the crisis.
In Ceuta, locals draped Spanish flags over their shoulders and waved the city’s black-and-white flag, chanting: “Expel the invaders” and “Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta must be defended.”
Tomas Canton, a 32-year-old social security employee, denied locals were “racist” for demanding solutions and the return of normality.
In Ceuta—where 40 percent of the population is Muslim—“we have always gotten along very well,” he said.
For Halima Ahmed, spokesperson for the Luna Blanca nongovernmental organization that distributes hundreds of cooked meals to the migrants every day, “they are people in a vulnerable situation, we need to have a little bit of empathy.”
