The death toll of migrants in a massive attempt to reach Ceuta from Morocco last week rises to 77, Spanish authorities reported on Tuesday. Many migrants drowned while trying to swim around a fence in the Mediterranean Sea, amid tens of thousands of irregular entries at the end of July, which triggered a diplomatic crisis between Spain and its European Union partners.
Read more Anchors of foreign action
A Spanish legal body responsible for identification work, composed of forensic experts and the Civil Guard, stated in a communiqué that the authorities in Ceuta had recovered 79 bodies from the sea. But two of them were collected on July 29 and early July 30, before the surge, so the death toll remains at 77, the statement added.
The president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, estimated that around 6,000 immigrants remain “wandering” through the autonomous city “without having their needs met” after last week’s massive influx, in which, according to his figures, about 80,000 people entered, 8,000 more than the Interior Ministry counts, of whom he says 73,000 have returned to Morocco.
Furthermore, the PP leader said they are attending to 1,100 unaccompanied foreign minors, when before July they had under their care 180 and according to the law their limit should be 90. “We are living a critical situation. We ask for help from the rest of Spain,” he demanded in an interview on TVE, where he said the population’s morale is very affected.
On the other hand, the National Court judge María Tardón has requested a report from the Civil Guard on their actions during the massive entry of migrants in Ceuta on July 30 and 31, detailing whether any information was received in previous days that could have warned about what was going to happen.
Aragón will comply with the law but will appeal the distribution of migrant minors it considers illegal
The Vice President of the Government of Aragón, Mar Vaquero, assured this Wednesday that the regional government will comply with the law if a distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors among autonomous communities is finally imposed, although she warned that she will appeal by all legal means any decision she considers unlawful.
In statements to the media, Vaquero explained that the Aragón government has not received “any official communication” from the Spanish Government about a possible distribution of unaccompanied minors from Ceuta following the arrival of thousands of migrants on July 30.
The vice president criticized the central government for intending to “solve by distributing responsibilities to all autonomous communities” a situation that, she insisted, it caused with its management.
Vaquero recalled that the Aragón child protection system has been “overwhelmed by 200% of its capacity” but, when asked about the possibility that the distribution might be mandatory, she emphasized that “the Government of Aragón will always comply with the law”.
Junts rejects hosting more minors in Catalonia and urges delegation of immigration powers
The Junts spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, rejected this Wednesday the idea of hosting more unaccompanied minors from Ceuta in Catalonia and urged delegating immigration powers to the Generalitat.
“Catalonia cannot be further strained,” Nogueras said in statements released by her party, reacting to the recent migration crisis in Ceuta.
According to Nogueras, “Catalonia should not cover Spain’s negligence, which unilaterally regularizes thousands of immigrants and is also unable to control its borders, nor the neglect of other autonomous communities, which do not host and have empty reception centers”.
Addressing the Catalan president, Salvador Illa, she warned that “hosting minors in precarious conditions, as is currently happening in Catalonia, is very hypocritical”.
Hunger, football, and asylum requests: the life of migrants in Ceuta, with images by Alberto Di Lolli
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The Ceuta border, with the containment barrier repaired, records no entries or exits
The Tarajal border, with the containment barrier in the sea repaired, records absolute normality this Wednesday with no new attempts of swimming entry into Ceuta nor voluntary returns to their country of origin.
According to EFE, the border crossing shows much calm this Wednesday – a holiday in the city – due to the absence of movement at the border crossing.
The Civil Guard’s surveillance continues both by sea and land while the municipal cleaning services continue working in the area where the massive entry occurred.
Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry has already repaired the part of the containment barrier located next to the Tarajal border jetty that had detached during the early hours of Monday.
The judge asks the Civil Guard if there were prior warnings of the massive entry in Ceuta
The National Court judge María Tardón has requested a report from the Civil Guard on their actions during the massive entry of migrants in Ceuta on July 30 and 31, detailing whether any information was received in previous days that could have warned about what was going to happen.
The judge made this request to the armed institute in the investigation opened about what happened in Ceuta, in which she has also requested a report from the Police to determine if it was “a concerted or directed action” by any “criminal group”.
In the case of the Civil Guard, she also requests details of the rescue operations of people in Spanish territorial waters, with known identities and personal circumstances, and, in the case of the deceased, if the cause of death is recorded.
Miguel Ángel Pérez: “There are 528 minors in the Ceuta residence”
Miguel Ángel Pérez, Government delegate in Ceuta, appeared before the media to provide the latest available data, such as that there are 528 minors in the residence. “There are minors on the streets and that is a priority, a concern”.
Regarding the services made available to citizens, Pérez commented that the Civil Guard has enabled an email for people who need “information about the deceased, who are 79”.
“Water and food are also being distributed on Trampolín beach, a task carried out by the Red Cross and National Police, an open supply for everyone”.
Regarding humanitarian aid, the delegate estimated 16 people hospitalized after the massive entry of immigrants since last Thursday.
Journalists asked Pérez about the fluctuating data published about the number of migrants not returned to Morocco: We have data from the Interior Ministry, and according to these, 2,000 people have been attended to around the CETI. But it is very difficult to provide exact numbers”.
The PP, on the distribution of minors: “It must be fair, well-funded, and planned”
The Deputy Secretary of Sectoral Coordination of the PP, Alma Ezcurra, said this Wednesday that the distribution among autonomous communities of unaccompanied minors who have arrived in Ceuta, if it occurs, must be “fair, well-funded, and planned”.
She stated this in an interview on Onda Cero, where, when asked if PP-governed communities will accept the distribution of minors, she responded that “the PP will always comply with the law and will always be on the side of the people of Ceuta”.
Read more Interior had reports warning of the ‘call effect’ in Ceuta but «did not close the door»
Ezcurra insisted that the Spanish Government must take charge of the situation and clarify how many minors are on the streets of Ceuta. She also criticized the announcement of an extraordinary allocation of 25 million euros and the proposal for their reception when it still does not know how many there are.
Portugal subtly accuses Spain of inciting a “call effect” due to “lack of migration regulation”
The Prime Minister of Portugal, Luís Montenegro, subtly criticized the Spanish Government’s migration policies, following the recent crisis in Ceuta, blaming it for the “lack of regulation” to address this phenomenon, which “often has a call effect”.
“These days we are witnessing incredulously the lack of rules, of regulation, for migratory flows, in which some insist on adopting policies that often have a call effect, they call them without providing the conditions to host and integrate them,” Montenegro said, according to Lusa.
A clear allusion to the Spanish Government which, unlike Portugal, is not doing “what should be done,” the prime minister said Tuesday on the sidelines of the inauguration of the country’s first private family health unit, in the Lisbon municipality of Torres Vedras.
“In Portugal, we are doing what has to be done. We are creating conditions so that people have dignity when they arrive in Portugal,” Montenegro emphasized, defining those terms as “having a job, housing and (…) access to health, education, and mobility”.
Cuerpo hopes not to enter judicial conflict with PP over distribution of migrant minors
The First Vice President of the Government and Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, expressed this Wednesday his hope not to enter a judicial conflict with the PP over a hypothetical refusal of its communities to host immigrant minors from Ceuta, an attitude he attributed to fear of breaking their pacts with Vox.
Cuerpo referred to the attitude of PP-governed autonomous communities regarding the distribution of minors after the massive entry of immigrants in Ceuta in an interview on Spanish Television in which he defended the government’s management of the situation.
In response to voices from the PP, such as its secretary general, Miguel Tellado, who expressed reservations about that distribution of minors, Cuerpo said that in this matter “there is no discussion”. “This is about complying with the law, and that is what I expect everyone with some responsibility to do, whether leading an autonomous community or the Government. I expect nothing else,” he stressed.
Felipe VI congratulated King Mohammed VI on Throne Day and highlighted the “bonds of brotherhood”
King Felipe VI sent a congratulatory message to the Moroccan monarch Mohammed VI on the celebration of Throne Day, commemorated on July 30, a holiday that coincided with the day of massive migrant entries into Ceuta, and highlighted that the “bonds of brotherhood, friendship, and cooperation will continue” with Morocco.
This was detailed by the Moroccan News Agency (MAP), which reported that Mohammed VI “received a congratulatory message from King Felipe VI of Spain” on the 27th anniversary of his accession to the throne. According to the agency, the Spanish monarch expressed in the message, “on his own behalf and on behalf of the Government and the Spanish people,” his “warmest congratulations and best wishes of happiness and health to his brother” Mohammed VI. He also wished “prosperity and well-being to the Moroccan people”.
Furthermore, Felipe VI, as the same sources relate, took advantage of this “special occasion” to reiterate “the feelings of affection he feels” for Mohammed VI and “his confidence that the close ties of brotherhood, friendship, and cooperation that unite these two brotherly peoples will continue” to strengthen.
Vivas: “Before the surge we attended 750 minors. Now they are 1,100. By law, we should attend 90”
The president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, estimated that around 6,000 immigrants remain “wandering” through the autonomous city “without having their needs met” after last week’s massive influx, in which, according to his figures, about 80,000 people entered, 8,000 more than the Interior Ministry counts, of whom he says 73,000 have returned to Morocco.
Furthermore, the PP leader said they are attending to 1,100 unaccompanied foreign minors, when before July they had under their care 180 and according to the law their limit should be 90. “We are living a critical situation. We ask for help from the rest of Spain,” he demanded in an interview on TVE, where he said the population’s morale is very affected.
Likewise, Vivas stated that “Morocco is not a reliable country” and that their “concern” is that there could be a third massive arrival after last Thursday’s and the one they experienced in May 2021, with more than 10,000 entries: “It has been shown that our security and our border are vulnerable and are in the hands of a country that does not recognize our sovereignty,” reports Marta Belver.
Beatings, fear, hunger, “girls prostituting themselves”… And the Government defends that “human rights are respected”
“In Spain the fundamental rights of minors and adults are respected. That is beyond discussion.” The phrase was pronounced yesterday at a press conference by the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and with it he sought to close any debate on the matter. But in Ceuta, on the streets, there are hundreds of boys and girls who tell a different story: beatings, hunger, fear, or nights without shelter, among garbage, graves, and exposed to the lasciviousness of sexual predators.
Kenza, from Fez, is a 15-year-old teenager with a head wound. She shows it by moving aside her dark, almost black hair, to reveal the scab on her scalp. She says that upon arriving in Ceuta, she was hit with a stone. “I was bleeding from the head and the adults took me to the hospital, but they did not attend to me,” she recounts.
Read the report by Daniel J. Ollero, with photos by Alberto di Lolli.
Interior had reports warning of the ‘call effect’ in Ceuta but “did not close the door”
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has been trying since last Friday to focus on the Spanish intelligence services in the search for those responsible for the massive passage of migrants through the Tarajal crossing. A pointing that has caused friction within the Government with Defense Minister Margarita Robles, and which, according to sources consulted by this newspaper, contains “half-truths”.
Although the person responsible for coordinating border operations – the Interior Minister – has insisted that no one warned them, there were several reports warning that the Supreme Court ruling on hot returns could cause an increase in entries in Ceuta. Specifically, they warned of the possibility of people arriving by swimming, a scenario those documents especially emphasized. They even warned that those entries could be significant and very numerous. Marlaska’s argument is based on the fact that no one provided them with concrete figures or the scale of what happened, but, according to sources, “no intelligence analyst in the world can give an exact number of people who will cross a border, nor can they predict the exact day it will happen”.
Read the report by Marina Pina.
Marlaska was delayed with the floating wall in Ceuta and the Government resolves the crisis without accountability: “These things happen”
All residents of the Málaga municipality of Estepona, one of the most populous on the Costa del Sol. Or twice the number of registered residents in the city of Teruel. About 72,000 people, in sum. This is the updated estimate by the central Government of the number of immigrants who last week crossed the maritime border between Morocco and Ceuta irregularly in a matter of hours, practically all at once. And without their movements being a cause for alert for the National Intelligence Center (CNI).
This is at least the version maintained by the Interior Minister, who insists he received no warning from any Spanish secret services or those of other European Union countries. “If there had been any possibility that something like this could happen, I am not saying what definitely happened, but something similar to 2021 [when another 10,000 foreigners also arrived en masse in the autonomous city], there would have been a report or a warning to the highest authorities shortly after. I think that says it all,” emphasized Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Tuesday in a press conference.
Read the report by Marta Belver.
The Institute of Legal Medicine performs 77 autopsies after receiving 79 bodies in Ceuta
The Institute of Legal Medicine of Ceuta has received the bodies of 79 people who died in the sea trying to cross the border into Spain and has performed autopsies on 77 bodies.
According to a statement issued this Tuesday, forensic doctors have conducted 77 autopsies, identifying two people who died during the massive entry of more than 70,000 people last Thursday.
The two pending autopsies are expected to be completed this Wednesday, according to sources.
Vox denounces the Government delegate in Ceuta and demands urgent security measures
Vox filed a complaint this Tuesday against the Government delegate in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Pérez, and has also demanded “urgent precautionary measures” to increase the presence of the Armed Forces and maritime control. In a statement, the party said it has filed the complaint against the Ceuta government authority and “against all authorities resulting from the investigation”.
The document demands urgent precautionary measures to protect residents, reinforcement and judicial supervision of the Armed Forces’ support at the border, and investigative proceedings to find out what happened, including the submission of intelligence reports, National Security, and the Court of Auditors.
The complaint places the Government delegate “in a position of guarantor of all persons within his jurisdiction, by his status as the highest State authority in the territory and subjects him to investigation for commission by omission, of crimes against life and physical integrity, malfeasance, denial of assistance, and crimes against public order”.
