The scenes of May 2021, when thousands of people entered CEUTA from Morocco, have been repeated during this Christmas, specifically on the days of Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
As it happened then, more than a thousand young people were mobilized through false messages on social networks that announced the opening of the border by order of Mohamed VI or that the police would again allow illegal crossing on the beach.
The decisive difference over May of last year is that if Moroccan security forces turned Gorda and even helped the Moroccans to cross a migratory crisis, on this occasion the authorities of the Alauí kingdom designed a wide device to contain them,
Being patent so Morocco has returned to border cooperation.
Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve ended with riots and clashes among those who intend to go to Ceutay the more than a thousand agents displaced by the Moroccan government from all over the country.
A statement from the Ministry of the Moroccan Interior warned that the Head of Government had given orders to the Prefectures of Tetouan and M’diq (Rincon) to control and contain the people who pretended to approach the area of Castillejos, arriving to Blind the accesses
From the road that circumvent the city and that ends in the border crossing, as well as from the route that connects the customs directly with the road that comes from Tangier.
After open research to determine the origin of the Bulos that had run as gunpowder through Facebook and telephone chat groups, the authorities arrested three people in Tetouan and Tangier – two men and a woman – accused of spreading false news
They put the security of the State at risk.
During the deployment, the Moroccan agents identified several hundred people who were forced to return to their places of residence on buses chartered by the government.
Moroccan security forces thus slowed down the massive attempt.
Only some isolated sub-Saharan groups managed to bend the fence without concertinas.
Meanwhile, on the Spanish side, Civil Guard and National Police remained on alert, supported by a helicopter and very attentive events on the other side of the border.
The reasons, among many others, in which the return of Morocco is based on collaboration in the fight against illegal immigration is found in the international discredit that earned after the events of May 2021. Two weeks after serious crisis
Migratory, on June 10, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in which it rejected the use of Morocco of border control and immigration “as political pressure against a Member State of the EU”, deploration “in particular, the participation of children,
Unaccompanied minors and families at the crossing of the border to the Spanish city of Ceuta, putting their lives and security at risk. ”
However, these new massive attempts to illegally cross Spain must be framed in the context of the pandemic.
The closure of the border has hampered the informal economy that supported many Moroccans.
Before restrictions on the Covid-19, those who lived in limitrophical cities with Ceuta, such as Castillejos, Rincón and Martil, could cross the Spanish city every day to work.
Many Moroccans, in addition, continue to aspire to emigrate to Europe sabers from the cases of people who entered May and could ask asylum.
A Spanish official of Ceuta, who wanted to maintain anonymity, is convinced that “the true call called occurs in the ease of emerging from the peninsula after the asylum request: they call it” Express Visa “.
A declaration of intentions, 2,600 applications submitted since May and more than 2,300 of the applicants are already in the peninsula, with many possibilities of remaining illegal despite the expulsion order. ”
Not even the development plans for the area, announced by the Kingdom of Morocco, seduce a population punishable by the eternal crisis suffering from the most unequal region in North Africa.
The arrival of Ikea and other multinationals scheduled for the summer of this year, is not generating the expectations desired by those responsible for dynamizing the economy of the region.
Said, a bricklayer of the Moroccan city of Castillejos who entered during the crisis, is pronounced on the situation: “Although Morocco wants to develop the area, if it does not help the border be fluid on both sides and allows our neighbors of Ceuta
They can buy, by many commercial ships they build, most residents will not have money to spend on them. If there is no work and opportunities, who will come to buy, the rich of Casablanca? ”
From the last May crisis still remains an important problem without solving: the difficulty in making them return with their families the minors who arrived alone.
Ceuta has become a great reception center for boys and girls who agreed to the city attracted by the deception that they could see their football heroes play a party.
The government of the Autonomous City and the Government delegation traced in August last year a plan to expel 65 minors in a first remittance.
Following the complaint of various human rights organizations and child protection, justice paralyzed extraditions.
Morocco promised to facilitate the return of all its minors and for this it must send personalized reports from each family that claims the return of their children.
To this day, the area of minors managed by the city of Ceuta, as legal guardian of these children, has not received any report from the Moroccan authorities.
