“Friend, bread, milk, cookies, please, brother. We have been without food for three days,” complains a Moroccan man sitting on some rocks near the road leading to the Temporary Stay Center for Immigrants (CETI) in Ceuta. It is half past seven in the evening yesterday. A National Police van, with several officers on foot guarding it, has been driving away hundreds of people gathered around the entrance gate to the facility trying to get in.
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The officers manage to disperse the immigrants from the entrance to the CETI, but the adjacent forest and the lower part of the road are full of young people. Many of them sleep on the ground. Others wander around the slopes near this adult reception center. There are women, but few. Also some minors who do not know whom to turn to for assistance from the autonomous city’s reception services. They have come from all over the world: besides Moroccans, who are the majority, there are Algerians, Sudanese, Malians, Afghans, Palestinians, Libyans, Chadians…
It is impossible to estimate a number of how many there are. Probably more than a thousand. Those who have not managed to register to access the CETI when its current occupancy is reduced – well above the 512 places available – ask the journalist for something to eat and ask what they have to do to enter the facility. If they manage to get in someday, they will temporarily have a bed to sleep in and daily food. Depending on each person’s situation, they will be expelled, start asylum procedures, or receive residence permits if there is family ties, among other administrative possibilities.
Adam is a boy from Tetouan (Morocco) who has been around the CETI since last Thursday. He got in the middle of that human chain of more than 50,000 people that broke into Ceuta through the breakwater that separates the city from the neighboring country.
The boy wears a faded Achraf Hakimi t-shirt, the Moroccan PSG footballer and one of the stars of his country’s national team. Jokingly, he recalls that Hakimi was born in Madrid but is Moroccan by descent and decided to play for the country his parents come from. “We are all brothers, friend,” he says. “You and I, brothers”.
“-How did everything happen the other day?” asks the reporter.
“-I arrived by bus with a group of friends to Castillejos [the Moroccan town on the other side of the border]. I haven’t seen some of them again. I don’t know if they managed to cross, if they died… I want to enter the CETI, but no one pays attention to us.”
“-In Morocco, did anyone stop you forcefully to make you leave?”
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“-There were three or four gendarmes here and there… They threw stones at people. They hit us with batons. They set dogs on us. The only thing they didn’t want was for us to cross the border on foot. They pushed us toward the water. They didn’t care if we entered Ceuta or drowned.”
“-Hasn’t the Police, the Civil Guard, or the military of Ceuta driven you away?”
“-I think I’ve been lucky. I arrived here right after crossing the border. A friend who lives in Ceuta brought me on a motorcycle. I called him and told him I had crossed. Most of the people I know are already in Morocco. I have been sleeping nearby since then. It’s cold at night because this is a hill. Everyone is hungry. There have been some fights. People can’t take much more.”
Another young man confirms Adam’s words. He is Sudanese. He asks that his name not appear in this report in exchange for speaking with EL MUNDO. “I don’t want to have problems with anyone,” he says.
“-There were thousands of people,” the boy says. “It looked like a demonstration. It was impossible to contain so many people. Morocco did nothing to stop us. They wanted us to enter through the water. They could only have done so by pushing people many kilometers away, but there were no controls on the roads and paths of Castillejos.”
At the foot of the hill where the Temporary Immigrant Detention Center is located, there is a beach. Around two hundred sub-Saharan immigrants were gathered there, on the sand. Some were rinsing off under the showers. Others had climbed onto the roof of some wooden toilets. A few were sleeping and a handful were bathing in the same waters that saw them arrive by swimming.
A dozen National Police officers guarded the area, which remained cordoned off throughout the day. The officers had to call an ambulance because one of the immigrants fainted and began to suffer mild convulsions. His companions evacuated him by hand from the beach to a sidewalk, awaiting the arrival of medical personnel. From the terrace of her chalet, about 50 meters away, a woman watched the scene with a look of pity. “They can’t take it anymore. They are tired, barely eating or drinking,” comments a taxi driver.
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