Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia have been greeted by thousands of residents in Ceuta on October 13, in the first visit by a Spanish monarch to the city in almost two decades.
The royal couple landed at the Ceuta heliport shortly after midday and walked along the Paseo Alcalde Sánchez Prados to greet residents gathered behind barriers.
Crowds filled the Plaza de África and the streets around it, waving Spanish flags and holding banners welcoming the King and Queen to their own city, as church bells rang out. Nearly 200 news organisations were accredited to cover the day.
Residents chanted that Ceuta was not for sale and that they were Spanish, in scenes the city has not staged in years.
The visit came 10 weeks after the invasion of Ceuta on July 30 and 31, when tens of thousands of people crossed irregularly from Morocco by land and by sea. Spain’s Interior Ministry put the number who entered at about 72,000, with some 70,000 returned to Morocco within days.
Ceuta President Juan Jesús Vivas handed the King the city’s gold key and warned that Ceuta remained under a pressure that could burst at any moment.
Police officers and soldiers dismantled the last migrant camp in the historic centre on October 11, two days before the royal couple arrived.
Felipe VI was due to speak at the Parador La Muralla on the evening of October 13 and to spend the night in Ceuta, the first Spanish head of state to do so since Alfonso XIII. The King and Queen would travel on to Melilla on October 14.
Ceuta and Melilla are the only land borders the European Union shares with Africa. The European Parliament held Morocco responsible for the summer crossings in a resolution in September that described them as an act of hybrid warfare against a member state.
Morocco, which claims both cities, made no official protest at the visit. Its state-aligned media described Ceuta as occupied territory and a national fishing federation called a protest outside the Spanish consulate in Agadir.
The last royal visit, by Juan Carlos I in 2007, prompted Rabat to recall its ambassador from Madrid.
The trip falls six weeks before the general election of November 29, with immigration and the government’s handling of Morocco weighing on the campaign. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez acknowledged this week that Moroccan warships had entered Ceuta’s waters while the crossings were under way.
