When the border between Morocco and the Spanish exclave Ceuta opened on Monday, it was as if a valve had opened. Around 8,000 people streamed across the border, mostly young men, but also women and children. Most of them are now back where they came from, the border is closed again. Nevertheless, the scenes from Ceuta were not without consequences. Spain and the EU will be busy working on them for a long time to come.
To understand the events in Ceuta, a look at Fnideq helps first: The city is only seven kilometers from Ceuta, is about the same size, and yet the two cities are worlds apart. Because Ceuta belongs to Spain and thus to the EU, Fnideq, on the other hand, is on the Moroccan side of the multi-fortified border fence. Around 80,000 people live in Fnideq, which many Spaniards still call Castillejos; until 1956 the city was under Spanish protectorate. In the meantime, Fnideq is also a basin for the stranded: Drugs, alcoholism and desperation determined the lives of the many young homeless people who populate the city, wrote the Spanish-Moroccan web portal Bladi last fall.
The people in Fnideq are groaning under a “double crisis,” reports the local newspaper Ceuta lighthouse: The consequences of the Corona crisis hit you just as hard as the consequences of the border closure between Spain and Morocco. Since March 2020, commuters have not been allowed to travel back and forth between the two cities. Many lost their jobs in this way. The people in Fnideq demonstrated again and again, in April they moved in front of the town hall because they “didn’t even have anything to eat,” it says Ceuta lighthouse. The city was “in danger”, so the paper at the time. Anger and despair of the people would have pent up for a long time. That is why so many people want to take advantage of the open border.
Even before Monday, news was apparently circulating on social media announcing that what had long been unthinkable should suddenly be possible: The border is opening! The Spanish newspaper The world speaks of a targeted disinformation campaign in Rabat. Children had been promised that football star Cristiano Ronaldo would play in Ceuta; However, the newspaper does not provide any evidence for this.
The Guardia Civil felt overwhelmed
One thing is certain: on Monday and Tuesday, thousands left Morocco for Ceuta and they encountered little or no resistance from Moroccan border officials. Videos can be seen of border guards holding up the fence to allow groups of young men to pass. Another obstacle was to overcome a strip of the Mediterranean – then they were on European soil. The approximately 600 emergency services of the Guardia Civil in Ceuta saw themselves overwhelmed by the mass of those arriving and also in a conflict of roles: On the one hand, police rescued exhausted people from the floods of the Mediterranean Sea – the photo of a diver holding the lifeless body of a baby above water, went around the world – on the other hand, emergency services pushed migrants from the cliffs back into the sea.
Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez flew to Ceuta to speak of the “inviolability” of the border and the security of the population that must be guaranteed. He ordered that the migrants should be sent back to Morocco “immediately”.
According to the current status, more than 6,600 such “repatriations” from Ceuta back to Morocco have taken place, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior said on Friday. Such a procedure is not possible with unaccompanied minors: although many of the younger children in particular want to return home at the age of seven or eight, this is not possible without the Spanish authorities having contact with their parents. Spain’s Minister of Social Affairs, Ione Belarra, now wants to have the 200 children and young people who were previously housed in the Ceuta reception camps transferred to the Spanish mainland to make room for the newly arrived. This is not yet a plan for housing the 1,500 to 2,000 remaining minors. The children and young people are currently temporarily housed in old warehouses.
Meanwhile, human rights organizations criticize that even in the case of adult migrants, express deportation is illegal. Sánchez himself had repeatedly spoken out vehemently against this practice. Now he is receiving recognition from the EU and the German government for his “quick and effective reaction”. The deputy government spokeswoman Martina Fietz said in Berlin that “the measures already taken by the Spanish government” are welcomed in a currently difficult situation.
Europe is demonstratively closed and Morocco does not want to let the strategic opening of the border pass. The Spanish newspaper headlined the suspension of border controls at risk of EU payments to Morocco The country this Friday, invoking “high-level sources” from Brussels. Morocco has received around 13 billion euros in EU money in the past 14 years, the paper calculates. Part of this is also used to ensure that Morocco holds the border to Europe tight in return. Theoretically. But the arrival of a total of 23,000 boat refugees in the Canary Islands last year and 5000 this year was possible mainly because the security forces on the Moroccan west coast apparently no longer looked so closely when a boat cast off.
Morocco is in demand as a border police on the EU’s southern border
Morocco is not only in demand as a border police on the EU’s southern border. Thousands of harvest workers come to Spain from the country every year to work as seasonal workers to pick the fruit and vegetables for the European market. Spain is also traditionally Morocco’s most important trading partner. But the relationship between the two countries has come under stress due to the corona pandemic: the harvest workers had to stay at home the previous year because the borders were tight. Poverty in Morocco worsens every month that tourists are absent
Both countries are therefore hoping that the pandemic will end soon, but Morocco’s population is suffering even more from its consequences. Federal Minister of Economics Gerd Müller (CSU) has already pointed out this emergency: He sees the crisis in Ceuta as a reaction by Morocco in the struggle for a fair economic and trade policy. For fifteen years the country has been negotiating better access for its goods to the European economic area. “That is the reaction of a youth who sees the wealth and prosperity in Europe,” said Müller.
In Spain, the government was less sympathetic. Because their own sensitivities are more directly affected. Spain continues to regard Morocco as a friend, but does not accept “blackmail”, said Defense Minister Margarita Robles. “Spain is not to be trifled with.” Robles spoke of “aggression” and accused Rabat of abusing young people and children “to make politics”.
Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, on the other hand, attributed the crisis to a one-off cause: it was triggered solely by the fact that a man whom Morocco regards as a terrorist was treated in a Spanish hospital. Spain had the head of the Polisario independence movement, Brahim Ghali, treated in a northern Spanish hospital in mid-April. “For purely humanitarian reasons,” as Foreign Minister Arancha González emphasized. But from a Moroccan perspective, the left-wing government in Madrid is suspected of sympathizing with Polisario. The movement is fighting against the occupation of the Western Sahara by Morocco. Spain’s role in the conflict is difficult because of its history: Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975.
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