Ceuta spirals into chaos as Spain’s Sánchez struggles to regain control

CEUTA, Spain — Spanish police fired shots into the air Monday morning as they worked to clear several thousand young men from an encampment in a parking lot beside Ceuta’s city hospital.

The chaotic scene, with officers using batons to direct migrants toward the center of the city, was an uncomfortable reminder of the gap between early assurances from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his government that the crisis was largely over — and the reality unfolding in Ceuta’s streets.

At the time, Spanish and EU officials said that nearly all of 72,000 migrants who crossed from Morocco to Ceuta had abandoned the city. But as his police was intervening on Monday morning, Sánchez had to concede in a radio interview that around 5,000 of them remained in the Spanish territory.

That number is disputed by officials like Ceuta Mayor-President Juan Jesús Vivas, who maintains that some 10,000 unauthorized people are still in the city. The CEP police union and Spanish National Police officers who spoke to Axel Springer’s Global Reporters Network agreed with the larger figure.

Among the migrants that remain in the city are some 1,200 unaccompanied minors who are due to be transferred to shelters on the Iberian Peninsula in the coming weeks, Sánchez said Monday.

The prime minister has vowed that his government will resolve the crisis with “dignity” and in accordance with the law. In practice, that means migrants must be allowed to file asylum claims and have their cases considered — a process that could substantially delay any deportations.

The unresolved situation is turning Ceuta into a theater of ongoing violence between locals, Spanish authorities and the remaining migrants.

Several Spanish soldiers were injured after a group of around 40 young migrants pelted them with stones last week. In a separate incident, police arrested three migrants Sunday accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a platoon patrolling the exclave.

Meanwhile, Spanish police last week intervened to protect migrants after local demonstrators stormed their improvised encampment on Ceuta’s El Trampolín beach and set fire to their belongings. 

It’s on El Trampolín that Laarvi and his son Omar, both from Tetouan in Morocco, set up camp. “My son couldn’t find work back home,” Laarvi said. The men said they dream of a better life on the Spanish mainland, and perhaps someday further north in Europe. 

But those dreams are unlikely to come to fruition. Sánchez confirmed Monday that those who entered Ceuta for economic reasons would not qualify for asylum and would be subject to deportation.

Escalating violence

The removals cannot come soon enough for locals frustrated with the continued presence of thousands of migrants in the city.

“Normally, elderly people spend the summer at the beach, but they can’t do that anymore,” said Jalid Ali Amar, a local resident who owns a restaurant near the encampment on El Trampolín beach.

Ali Amar said the city’s inhabitants had been forced to endure weeks of chaos. He added that he had no respect for the migrants “because they have no respect” for locals, many of whom he said are now too afraid to leave their homes because of the deteriorating security situation.

Sebastián Sützl, a spokesperson for Spain’s CEP police union in Madrid, said crime in the exclave had increased eightfold since July 30, but provided no evidence to substantiate the claim. Spain’s interior ministry declined to confirm or deny a rise in criminality, saying it had yet to receive the latest crime statistics from Ceuta.

During a visit to the exclave last week, however, Attorney General Teresa Peramato confirmed that authorities had detected an increase in criminal assaults and crimes against private property over the past month.

And on Monday, Ceuta’s Public Prosecutor’s Office said it was investigating 22 alleged sexual assaults targeting migrant women and girls, as well as an additional case involving a man belonging to the LGBTQ+ community.

“Many women have been raped,” said Helena Maleno, spokesperson for migrant rights NGO Caminando Fronteras. She added that the true number could be higher than the figure confirmed by Spanish officials, as migrant women may not know how to report sexual assaults or trust authorities enough to do so.

Aid groups are increasingly caught in the middle of the violence.

Nolte Bauer, an activist with Mission Lifeline, a German NGO that works with migrants and internally displaced people, said he had received death threats. He added that unidentified people had attempted to slash the wheels of his truck, from which migrants can charge their phones for free. Protesters have also tried to stop Red Cross vehicles from distributing food to migrants.

“I understand that the current situation is stressful for local residents, and I understand that they are protesting,” Bauer said. “But threatening people with death, hunting people down and setting camps on fire — that crosses a line.”

The activist questioned the lack of solidarity with the migrants. “Europe is over there,” he said. “There is plenty of space.”

Frustration builds

The unresolved crisis is proving to be a major challenge for Sánchez.

A third of the government’s ministers have been summoned to testify in extraordinary parliamentary hearings on the situation in Ceuta, during which lawmakers belonging to political groups that have traditionally supported the prime minister are increasingly expressing their frustration with the situation in the city.

Lawmaker Mikel Legarda, a member of the regionalist Basque Nationalist Party, slammed the government for “negligence” over the factors precipitating the crisis in Ceuta, and its “inaction” in returning the city to normalcy.

“The question is unavoidable: Where is the state?” he asked in parliament.

The Sánchez government on Tuesday unveiled a €309 million stimulus package to reinforce Ceuta’s security infrastructure, reinforce public services, aid local businesses and humanitarian support for migrants.

“The main objective of the decree is to give confidence to both businesses and workers,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo. “We are aware of the urgent need to act to restore the tranquility and confidence that Ceuta’s citizens and businesses need.”

But it remains unclear whether the measures will be enough to heal the lasting rifts the crisis is creating within the exclave.

Ceuta has long prided itself on being a bastion of hospitality and peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims on the North African coast, but the migrant influx is testing that identity, with locals like Ali Amar rejecting newcomers he said have “brought chaos” to the city.”

“I am Muslim. I am Spanish. I am a patriot,” he said. “These people have no business being here.”