The local president of Ceuta has asked the Spanish Government to declare a national emergency over the wave of irregular arrivals in the North African enclave, demanding a single chain of command to direct the response.
Juan Jesús Vivas said on July 30 that about 1,500 people had entered the city in little over a week, the equivalent of almost 2 per cent of its population of some 84,000. Speaking to the radio stations Onda Cero and Cadena SER, he put the daily rate of arrivals at around 300.
Vivas, of the centre-right Popular Party, argued that pressure on Ceuta was permanent because the city and Melilla form the only land and sea frontier Spain and Europe have in Africa. He said the current peak had turned the situation into a matter for the State as a whole.
The Centre for the Temporary Stay of Immigrants (CETI) was built for 512 people but was holding more than 700 on July 29, with about 400 others camped outside its gates. Facilities for unaccompanied minors, which fall to the city government, were reported by the city government to be running at around 1,600 per cent of capacity.
Ceuta was caring for roughly 570 minors, up from 180 some 10 days earlier, and has reopened two centres held in reserve for exceptional cases.
The Government Delegation in Ceuta began moving people to the mainland on July 29, when a first group of 39, mostly Sudanese nationals, was taken to Algeciras in southern Spain. Vivas said emergency funding was needed for both adult and minor facilities.
He also called for closer cooperation with Morocco to stem departures, more Civil Guard and National Police officers on the border and a change in the law following a Supreme Court ruling.
The court held on July 8 that migrants intercepted at sea while swimming towards Ceuta and Melilla cannot be summarily handed back to Moroccan authorities, because open water does not amount to the kind of physical containment element a border fence provides. Police associations warned at the time that the judgment would act as a pull factor.
Vivas said that without decisive action the city would within a month be back where it was in May 2021, when about 8,000 people crossed in two days amid a diplomatic rupture with Rabat.
The surge has come as the Sánchez Government processes nearly 1.3 million applications under its mass regularisation programme, opposed by both the Popular Party and Vox.
Ceuta and Melilla are the European Union’s only land borders with Africa.
