France 24
In Ceuta, Spain returns several thousand migrants to Morocco
The Spanish authorities announced that they had expelled on Tuesday at least 2,700 of the some 6,000 migrants who entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta the day before, while more than 80 migrants entered the neighboring enclave of Melilla. Further referrals are pending, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry. Scores of migrants, mostly from Morocco, continued to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the night of Monday 17 to Tuesday 18 May, joining the thousands of people who crossed the border unimpeded from the dawn.The Spanish authorities had recorded Monday at least 6,000 illegal border crossings from Morocco in Ceuta, including a thousand minors, a “record” according to the latest report of the prefecture. But Spain immediately returned to Morocco on Tuesday some 2,700 migrants, among the thousands of people who entered the day before, announced the Spanish Minister of the Interior. “We are in the process of continuing these returns,” the minister warned. , Fernando Grande-Marlaska, on Spanish public television. The minister defended these returns, saying they were “in accordance with the law and international treaties and agreements with Morocco.” Migrant crossings in Melilla Some 400 kilometers east of Ceuta, in Melilla, the second Spanish enclave located on the Moroccan coast, it is “more than 300” migrants, rather originating from “sub-Saharan Africa”, who tried to pass over the very high barrier protecting the enclave “around 4:45” (2 h 45 GMT) Some 85 migrants, including a woman, managed to enter, according to the Melilla prefecture. The woman in question required the assistance of the Red Cross, said the prefecture. “The migrants maintained an aggressive stance and threw stones at the agents,” three of whom had to receive treatment for “minor bruises,” added the prefecture. The migrants who managed to enter were taken to the enclave’s Temporary Stay Center (CETI). Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday promised to “restore order” in Ceuta after the influx of 6,000 migrants in the Spanish enclave, which he described as “a serious crisis for Spain and also for Europe”. “We are going to restore order in (the) city and at our borders as quickly as possible”, declared the head of government, who indicated that he would go there on Tuesday, as well as to Melilla, the other Spanish enclave located in northern Morocco. Pedro Sanchez, who canceled a trip to Paris due to the gravity of the situation, had previously assured that Spain would be “firm to guarantee security” in Ceuta and his arrival there is a sign, according to him of “the determination with which we act since the first moments of this crisis”. Reprisals of Morocco after the hospitalization in Spain of the leader of the Polisario Front Ceuta and Melilla constitute the only land borders of the European Union with Africa and are regularly the scene of risky crossings attempts by African migrants. But the crossings this time, the crossings have broken records “because of the absence of Moroccan police officers” at the border, specifies Henry de Laguerie, l e correspondent for France 24 in Spain. It was therefore enough for the candidates to migrate “to bypass the dike that separates Morocco from Spain in Ceuta and some have passed by swimming”. “It is a political gesture on the part of Rabat against Madrid which has been welcoming for several weeks, in a hospital, the leader of the Saharawi separatists of the Polisario sick with Covid-19”, estimates the journalist. According to the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs who reacted on Monday evening, Moroccan officials, whom she did not name, “assured” the Spanish authorities that this influx of migrants into the Spanish enclave “[n’était] not the fruit of the disagreement “with Rabat about the presence in Spain of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali. Relations between Rabat and Madrid have been strained since the arrival in Spain, on April 18, of this independence leader, the Morocco going so far as to summon the Spanish ambassador to tell him of his “exasperation”. With AFP
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