Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers are living in desperate conditions in Ceuta, the small Spanish territory on the northern coast of Africa, after a mass border crossing from Morocco last month pushed the enclave into a state of crisis.
Spanish authorities updated their estimates on Monday, saying roughly 80,000 people crossed into Ceuta at the end of July using inflatable rafts or by swimming from the Moroccan coast. The Spanish government says 70,000 of them returned to Morocco within two days, but a significant number remained.
Ceuta's Mayor-President Juan Jesus Vivas of the conservative Popular Party is demanding that those who stayed be detained and expelled. "A space that acts as an internment centre for foreigners must be set up, where these people can be held and remain confined," Vivas told reporters, according to Al Jazeera. He said the measure "must be achieved urgently" so that the migrants "are not in our streets and that expulsion proceedings can be handled with greater speed and ease."
Vivas estimates the number of migrants still in Ceuta at between 8,000 and 11,000 and describes the situation as "unsustainable." He disputes the Spanish central government's figure of 2,500 remaining asylum seekers and undocumented migrants.
Among those still in the territory are hundreds of unaccompanied children, who cannot be summarily deported under Spanish law. Those children, along with the broader migrant population, are struggling to access food, water, shelter, and sanitation, according to Al Jazeera. The strain on Ceuta's resources has become a central point of the political standoff.
The crisis has opened a fault line between Spain's leftist national government and regional administrations controlled by the conservative Popular Party and the far-right Vox party. Both opposition parties oppose absorbing unaccompanied children under current legal provisions.
On Sunday, 5,000 Ceuta residents gathered to protest the government's handling of the situation, which they say has left the enclave unsafe. The Spanish government minister responsible for regional relations, Angel Victor Torres, responded by saying that police and troop numbers had been increased, including 40 percent more civil guards deployed to the territory.
The crossing has also triggered a broader debate within the European Union about the management of its external borders and sparked a diplomatic dispute between Spain and other EU member states.
