Spain will send troops to Ceuta after thousands of African migrants arrive from sea
Spain’s armed forces will send 60 people to reinforce police in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, where a mass migrant crossing from Morocco overwhelmed the domestic force on Thursday, the Interior Ministry said.
Video footage showed hundreds of migrants swimming over from the Moroccan side using inflatable inner tubes and other flotation devices, and others breaking through a gate in the fence and running into the city, many shouting “Viva España!”
State television TVE reported that 2,000 to 3,000 people had crossed.
The scene was reminiscent of the crossing that occurred in May 2021, when some 10,000 people from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, many of them minors, entered the enclave of 85,000 people in days.
The move to bring in the army comes after authorities in the tiny Spanish territory called on the government to declare a national emergency and send in the army after thousands entered the region.
Ceuta, is located on the northern African coast, bordering Morocco. Spain is a main point of arrival into Europe for migrants seeking better economic opportunities or an escape from violence in their home countries.
The escalation at the border between Spain and Morocco comes after a surge in migrants attempting to reach the small exclave, mainly by swimming.
Spain’s interior ministry said it would guarantee the safety of its citizens and the nation’s border, but that the government could not declare a national emergency over migration concerns.
Footage showed crowds of people, mainly Moroccans, walking around the breakwaters at Tarajal beach onto local roads.
A Guardia Civil spokesperson said the migrants were “massively entering from the sea” through the Tarajal breakwater, but could not provide any estimates for the numbers. State television TVE on Thursday reported that 2,000 to 3,000 youths had crossed, while state news agency EFE said some had scaled the border fences without swimming.
Migrant rights activist Zakaria Zarroqui said the situation “remains out of control as we speak,” adding that people were still flocking to the Moroccan city of Fnideq in an attempt to cross into Ceuta.
Juan Jesús Vivas, the head of Ceuta’s regional government, called for the national government to declare a national emergency on grounds of national security, asking for more police and for the army to be deployed on the border.
Vivas said the additional police and soldiers would be necessary “to guarantee the inviolability of the frontier and citizen safety.”
He had warned on Wednesday that migrant reception centers were overwhelmed with hundreds of people sleeping on the streets.
