Spain returns 1 500 migrants to Morocco
MADRID - Spain returned to Morocco 1 500 of some 6 000 migrants who entered its Ceuta enclave as hundreds more tried to reach its other north African enclave yesterday, prompting the premier to cancel a Paris trip. The massive influx, which was a record number for a single day, had steadily made their way into Ceuta throughout the day on Monday, prompting a crisis in the tiny territory, which is home to some 84 000 people. The unprecedented number of arrivals, which occurred at a time of tension in Madrid’s ties with Rabat, prompted Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to cancel a trip to Paris later on yesterday where he was to attend an Africa financing summit, the government said.
Sanchez has called off a trip to Paris planned for later on yesterday due to the “recent events” in Ceuta.
Meanwhile, the local authorities in Melilla, Spain’s other north African enclave, said more than 300 migrants had tried to cross the barrier into the territory before dawn on yesterday, with 86 of them succeeding.
Mohamed Benaissa, the head of the North Observatory for Human Rights in the nearby Moroccan town of Fnideq, said the bulk of those making it to the Spanish side were “minors, youths but also families, all of them Moroccan”.
In an interview with public television TVE, interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said “around 6 000 people” had entered Ceuta on Monday. “At this time we have returned 1 500 of those people and we are proceeding to continue with this return and get the situation back to normal,” he said.
Figures published by the Spanish interior ministry show that between 1 January and 15 May, 475 migrants reached Ceuta by land or sea - already more than double the 203 that arrived in the same period last year.