A Month After the Mass Crossing, Ceuta’s Beaches Become a Standoff

CEUTA · MIGRATION

Ceuta’s migration standoff turned violent on Thursday, as residents burned migrants’ shelters on one beach and blocked Red Cross aid bound for another, nearly a month after more than 70,000 people crossed from Morocco. Riot police now stand between the enclave’s residents and the migrants still camped on its sand.

What happened on Ceuta’s beaches on Thursday

Demonstrators carrying Spanish flags broke through a police line and entered the migrant encampment on Benítez beach on Thursday evening, according to Anadolu Agency’s report from the enclave. Makeshift tents and belongings were destroyed, thrown into the sea and, in some cases, set alight.

Protesters also formed a human blockade to stop Red Cross vehicles carrying food and water from reaching migrants gathered at Trampolín beach. Public broadcaster RTVE said the vehicles initially turned back on police advice, while El País reported that officers later cleared a route and the daily food distribution went ahead under heavy security.

It was the second consecutive night of disorder. Several thousand residents marched on Wednesday, and about 400 of them headed for Trampolín, where police fired rubber bullets to keep the crowd away from the migrants’ camp and some protesters threw mattresses and blankets into the sea.

The confrontation had been building for days. Police moved more than 1,200 migrants off Trampolín on 20 August, but hundreds returned within hours and the settlement rebuilt, and clashes flared again at a Red Cross food distribution earlier this week.

A separate incident involving soldiers

In the early hours of Thursday, a group of up to 70 migrants threw stones and other objects at a military patrol vehicle in what a police spokesman in Ceuta described to AFP as an ambush. The soldiers fled on foot and called for police backup, after which the group dispersed.

One soldier suffered minor injuries after being struck in the back by a stone. Twelve people, all Moroccan nationals, were arrested.

That account comes from a single police source and has not been independently corroborated. It is reported here as the authorities’ version of events.

The July crossing that set this up

On 30 and 31 July, more than 70,000 people entered Ceuta from Morocco, swimming around the Tarajal breakwater or crossing on foot along the shoreline. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska later put the total at roughly 72,000 and said about 70,000 of them had returned to Morocco within days.

It was the largest mass breach in the enclave’s history, many times the size of the May 2021 crisis in which around 8,000 to 10,000 people crossed. At least 75 people died this time, most drowned or crushed near the breakwater, and recovery teams are still finding bodies.

The dispute now is over how many stayed. Spain’s government estimates between 3,500 and 7,000, Ceuta’s right-wing leadership says at least 10,000, and an El País estimate lands between them at 5,000 to 8,000.

Youth Minister Sira Rego said the government has identified about 1,500 minors among those remaining, 700 of them girls, many under the age of 13. Their care is the one part of the crisis both governments agree cannot wait.

Why a small enclave carries outsized weight

Ceuta is a Spanish enclave — a piece of Spanish territory on the North African coast, entirely surrounded by Morocco. It covers roughly 18 square kilometres and holds about 80,000 people, and with Melilla it forms the European Union’s only land border with Africa.

That geography gives Rabat a lever few of its neighbours possess. Whether the Moroccan side polices the crossing closely or loosely is read in Madrid and Brussels as a diplomatic signal, and several European outlets reported that Moroccan forces did little to stop the initial July rush.

Morocco’s government rejects the suggestion that it facilitated the crossing. It blames smuggling networks and disinformation spread on social media, and describes its migration cooperation with Spain as exemplary.

Madrid’s response, and what it does not settle

Hours before Thursday’s violence, Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Víctor Torres, who is overseeing the government’s response, appealed in parliament for non-violence and warned against attacking people because they are migrants. He said authorities have added 400 places to Ceuta’s temporary reception centre, taking it to 1,183, with two further sites prepared to sleep 1,827 adults.

The government had earlier announced an extra 25 million euros (about US$29 million) for the care of unaccompanied minors in the enclave, at roughly US$1.16 to the euro. Officials say returning migrants who have no right to stay is the priority, but that each case must be assessed individually, including possible asylum claims.

None of that answers the residents’ central complaint. Kissy Chandiramani, the city’s finance councillor, told Cadena Ser radio that tension is very high because there is no response from the government and residents feel abandoned.

What is verified, and what is not

The account of the ambush on the military vehicle comes from a single police spokesman, and no independent verification has been published. The figure for how many migrants remain diverges by several thousand depending on which authority is quoted, and both Madrid and the Ceuta administration have political reasons to prefer their own number.

What is not in dispute is that migrants are sleeping on beaches in an enclave of 80,000 people, a month after the crossing, and that residents are now confronting them directly. The Red Cross, whose aid convoys were caught in the middle, had not issued a public response to Thursday’s events at the time of writing.

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