Migrants burst over Spain’s border in Africa
Hundreds of African migrants stormed the border fence of Ceuta, the Spanish exclave in Morocco. Ten police officers and dozens of migrants were injured as the group, protected by home-made shields and body armour, unleashed a bombardment of sticks, stones, quicklime and excrement, as well as aerosols used as flame throwers, Spanish police said. The incursion came days after Spain overtook Italy in migrant arrivals to Europe by sea.
MORE than 700 African migrants yesterday stormed the border fence surrounding the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in Morocco, with dozens injured in an incursion of “unprecedented violence”.
Sixteen migrants and 10 officers from Spain’s Guardia Civil received hospital treatment following the incident, during which the group bombarded agents with quicklime, sticks, stones and bags of excrement, as well as aerosols used as flame throwers, the force said in a statement.
The incursion, which came days after Spain overtook Italy in migrant arrivals by sea, occurred at 6.30am when the men used angle grinders and shears to cut through the fence.
The group also bore defensive equipment such as home-made shields and body armour, the Guardia Civil said, and once through the fence continued to attack agents and security vehicles.
The force later recovered “Molotov cocktails and bags of hashish”, it added. The group scrambled over the razor wire fences “all of a sudden, with much violence”, a Guardia Civil spokesman in Ceuta said. A Red Cross emergency team treated more than 130 people for injuries, the NGO said in a statement.
The 10 Guardia Civil officers were sprayed with “some type of acid, lime or white liquid”, and received treatment for burns, respiratory and cognitive issues, but were later discharged.
Two of the migrants required surgery for “deep cuts”, while others were discharged after treatment for cuts and fractures. The 602 migrants who ultimately made their way onto Spanish soil have been taken into Ceuta’s temporary migrant reception centre, a facility already overflowing.
It is not the first such incursion across the borders of Ceuta and Melilla, the two Spanish outposts in North Africa. But it is the first entry of such a magnitude into Ceuta since February 2017, when 850 migrants crossed into the territory in four days. Security forces speaking to Europapress said the level of violence was “unprecedented”.
Spain is now the largest gateway for migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, with 19,586 people landing on its shores so far this year, said the International Organization for Migration.
Most in Spain welcomed the decision of Pedro Sánchez, the new Socialist prime minister, to grant safe harbour to the Aquarius, an NGO rescue ship, and its 630 migrants, after it was turned away by Italy in June. But there is rising concern that Spain cannot cope with the increasing numbers of arrivals.