Linda speaks slowly. She is shy and speaks little. She is sitting on the ground, in front of the space built with cardboard where she takes shelter, and responds with the help of an Arabic translator installed on a mobile phone. Nearby, her daughter Nani plays with other children who remain in the Tarajal industrial estate. Some people have brought them toys and the little ones share what they have. Among them is Cao, another girl who lives there with her mother, as well as other minors, some younger. During the day they run through the streets of the estate while the women take care of getting food, water, clean clothes, or a place to wash up.
Of the approximately 80,000 people who entered Ceuta since July 30, it is estimated that between 6,000 and 8,000 remain in the city. About a thousand stayed directly in Tarajal after crossing the border and have remained there since. Some sleep by the doors of the warehouses and others have settled in the old parking lot. There live alone women, divorced mothers, single mothers, families with small children, and minors who arrived without adult accompaniment. Some of these women have recounted situations of violence suffered in Morocco. Linda has told hers in detail and, after reaching Ceuta, also received a threat that this reporter was able to hear directly: «They are going to throw you out of Spain and I will be waiting to take your life and keep your daughter».
Linda recounts her life up to that call. She wants to apply for international protection, tell her story with the assistance of a lawyer and an interpreter, and have the authorities assess her situation before making any decision about a possible return. “I am very scared. I have anxiety. I am afraid to return to Morocco because I fear for my life and for my daughter’s safety.”
“I PREFER TO DIE HERE WITH MY DAUGHTER”
When she talks about the future, she does so thinking of Nani. “I want my daughter to grow up in Spain to guarantee her rights and her future. In Morocco, she will be lost.” Asked what it would mean to return, she keeps a few seconds of silence before answering: “I prefer to die here with my daughter rather than go through all that again.”
Her childhood took place in a small town among the mountains of northern Morocco, in the Fez-Mequinez region. She remembers it as a simple and happy stage with her parents and siblings, despite economic difficulties and some shortages. Her father, she says, did everything possible so that his children lacked nothing necessary and to provide them with what was within his reach. “We were a humble family, but we were fine,” she sums up.
The problems and violence came after getting married and becoming part of her husband’s family. Three years after the marriage, she became pregnant with her first daughter.
“I was living with a lot of pressure and there was violence. When I was two and a half months pregnant, my husband’s sister came. She grabbed me, pushed me against the wall, and started hitting me. I even fell to the ground. They had to take me to the hospital, where they gave me an injection, oxygen, and serum. Then they sent me back home.”
She assures that the assaults were repeated and that her husband also hit her. “He would come home and, if he found something not the way he wanted, even if I did everything I could and fulfilled my duties, he would start hitting me. There was always some reason.”
When it was time to give birth, her water broke and, she says, she stayed at home for three days losing fluid. She notified her mother-in-law, who told her it was normal, while her husband did nothing. Finally, an aunt came to see her and took her to the hospital. “When I arrived, they told me too much time had passed and the baby had aspirated that fluid. They told me both of us were in danger. They took me directly to the operating room.”
“HE TOLD ME MY BABY HAD DIED”
The newborn was transferred from the city where she lived to Beni Mellal because, according to Linda, the hospital in her town did not have enough resources to care for her. She remained unaware of her condition and called her husband to ask. He told her the baby was fine and would return soon. “On the fourth day, I called him again and he told me my baby had died. I did not accept it. I had a crisis. I told him not to lie to me, that I wanted to see my daughter. They did not let me see her. When they brought her from Beni Mellal, they took her directly to the cemetery and buried her. I couldn’t even see her.”
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For a long time, she needed medication to sleep. “It was like being dead while alive, like a body without a soul.” Three years later, Nani was born, whose arrival she interprets from her faith as a second chance. “I had not sought her. Subhanallah, she came alone. I think God wanted to compensate me for everything I had been through and for that girl they took from me. God gave me Nani.”
According to her testimony, the violence continued during the second pregnancy. She talks about beatings and sexual assaults committed by her husband and people from his family. She kept working until shortly before giving birth because, she says, he did not take care of her. After the divorce, she worked in a pastry shop and took her daughter to daycare. The salary was not enough to cover expenses and she had to borrow money to make it through the month. She states that the father also did not pay the pension established by a court. The separation did not end, she says, the harassment from her ex-husband: “He would cross paths with me, insult me, and assault me. Many times he told me he was going to kill me and take my daughter away.”
“THEY THOUGHT THAT BECAUSE I WAS DIVORCED I WAS A PROSTITUTE”
There were times when she worked from eight in the morning until midnight. There she encountered men who interpreted her divorced status as a form of sexual availability. “They thought that because I was divorced I was a prostitute.”
On one occasion, she recounts, two young men intercepted her when she was returning home. “They stopped me with a car, grabbed me, tore my clothes, and sexually abused me. Then they beat me until I bled and left me lying in the street. I got up as best I could and went to the police station to report what had happened.” The woman also found no protection there. “When they found out I was divorced, they did not believe me. A policeman told me: ‘Go away, we don’t have time for you.’ I left there crying.”
She ended up moving to Castillejos, the Moroccan town neighboring Ceuta, to get away from her ex-husband and find a job to support her daughter. School was about to start and she needed to face new expenses. She was there on July 30, when many people headed towards the customs area and the breakwater to try to reach Ceuta.
“I THOUGHT CEUTA WAS MY OPPORTUNITY”
“When this opportunity appeared, I thought it was my chance to guarantee her future,” she recalls. She took to the sea with her daughter on a rubber float. She remembers the crossing as a situation of chaos and fear. She was already in the water when she began to see people struggling to stay afloat and, she says, some drowning in front of her. “The situation was terrifying. I saw people drowning before my eyes and I could do nothing. I was screaming, but I could do nothing. I had my daughter with me and I was very afraid that we would both drown.”
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Before jumping into the water, she says she also witnessed the actions of Moroccan agents against people trying to reach the breakwater. “When people were holding onto the fence, they would arrive, start hitting them with batons, and push them so they would fall into the sea.” She also recalls what, according to her testimony, they shouted at them while pushing them: “You will never get out alive”.
More than a hundred people ended up as that guard predicted. Many crushed and drowned in less than two meters of depth. The danger continued in the water. A young man tried to take the camera on which she was carrying her daughter and, she says, tried to sink it to take it from her. “I started screaming. I was very afraid for my daughter. He almost managed to sink me.”
Another young man, whom she identifies as Spanish, came to her aid, grabbed both of them, and began to take them to the shore. “He told me not to be afraid. He started pulling us out until we reached the shore.” Once on land, he hugged the girl. “She was scared and crying. I also had a crisis.”
Linda also remembers Spanish police helping those still in danger and throwing cameras into the water to prevent them from drowning. Asked if she believes that intervention prevented more victims, she answers yes.
Since that day, mother and daughter have remained in Tarajal. The little one plays part of the day with Cao and other children while her mother takes care of her and tries to solve their needs. However, reaching Ceuta did not end the threats she says she suffered for years.
After crossing, she received the threatening call from her ex-husband’s phone. This reporter was present and was able to hear the words directed at Linda.
THE CAREGIVERS OF TARAJAL
A few meters from where it happened is New Hope, an old warehouse converted into a reception center and managed by the SAMU Foundation, where unaccompanied migrant minors whose guardianship corresponds to the Minors Area of the Autonomous City of Ceuta are housed, which already hosts almost 2,000 children according to official figures. The warehouses used to house people during previous crises remain closed for that purpose and some are being adapted for police devices in charge of triage and interviews with those who may request protection.
During the first days, there was also no medical assistance in the estate. About a thousand people remained there, including women and very young children, without a health device to attend to them. The situation began to change when Doctors of the World started going to Tarajal to offer consultations to those who needed them. Fifteen days after the massive entry on July 30, the Health Department added a doctor and two health professionals to the device. The medical action was accompanied by National Police officers, responsible for monitoring the device amid existing nervousness and the lack of attention many of the people gathered there had suffered.
Until then, the response to basic needs had been organized on the fly, mainly through associations and people who began bringing food, water, and other products. On the first night, there were children shivering from the cold on the esplanade and in the streets of the estate, without a place to sleep. For days, those who stayed there depended on the help that arrived from outside to meet the most basic needs.
The most immediate assistance has largely fallen on local associations and neighbors. Luna Blanca, a Ceuta organization based in the basement of the Sidi Embarek mosque, brings food to Tarajal every day. The association already distributed food throughout the year among needy families in the city and hundreds of people usually pass through its headquarters to eat. Since arrivals began, it has extended distribution to the estate. Mustafá, its president, explains the reason: “I cannot leave those people without food.”
Resources are limited and that help guarantees one meal a day. To shower, get clothes, drink water, or charge the phone, other solutions must be found. One of them has been Protective Wings, a small association whose president, Abdselam, stores clothes, food, and donations in a premises located in a peripheral neighborhood of Ceuta, in the area of the old fire station. His work did not start with this crisis. During the arrivals of 2021, he went out to the streets to attend to those who had just entered the city; this time he decided to keep the premises open so that people who needed help could come directly.
Linda went there one day with her daughter and other women from Tarajal. They were able to shower, put on clean clothes, drink water, and charge their phones before returning to the estate. “We are all brothers, we are all human, and we must help,” explains Abdselam.
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