On August 4, when the first voluntary departures ended after the invasion of Ceuta, Pedro Sánchez’s government assured that only 2,000 immigrants remained in the Autonomous City. Later – on August 13 – the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, raised this figure to 5,000 people.
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And that was it. But the current accounting of the Executive exposes significant discrepancies with the figures the Government has maintained so far, and raises doubts about the number of immigrants who entered and have remained on the streets of Ceuta for 50 days. Because while Marlaska dug in on those 5,000, in reality there were many more.
According to the latest official figure provided by the central government, 72,000 people entered Ceuta irregularly between July 30 and 31. This update dates from August 4, when the Government shared that in the first mass returns about 70,000 immigrants would have returned to Morocco. The difference, of 2,000 people remaining on the streets of Ceuta, was later raised to 5,000.
But these 5,000 do not match the sum of expulsions through judicial means (307) and voluntary returns (5,603) carried out since August 10, figures shared last Wednesday by Minister Ángel Víctor Torres. If we also add these data to the initial 70,000 returns, after the invasion 75,910 returns would have been carried out, 3,910 more than the entries calculated by the Government.
The Interior Ministry did not provide arrival data until 1:50 p.m. on July 31, and only did so after a first estimate with which the department was working was disseminated: 49,000 people. The person who made the figure public, the communications officer of the National Security Department (DSN), was dismissed with immediate effect that same day. Four days passed until the Government shared the calculation of 72,000 entries and specified the departures and the remainder of the invasion.
Additionally, last Wednesday the Single Command counted 4,160 people occupying temporary places in the reception resources enabled by the Government. If we add the 5,910 people returned since August 10, we can conclude that at least 10,070 people remained in Ceuta since the assault. That is, while the Government maintained that between 2,000 and 5,000 immigrants remained, in reality it can already be said that there were more than 10,000. The figure is approaching the estimates of Juan Jesús Vivas’s Government, which worked with a range of between 8,000 and 11,000 immigrants remaining in Ceuta.
Those 11,000 is also the figure stated in the support resolution for Ceuta that the European Parliament approved yesterday at the request of the PP and with the support of ECR, the Vox group, and part of the liberals. The text states that “approximately 80,000 migrants entered Ceuta irregularly” and that “up to 11,000 […] refused to return to Morocco and remain” there.
This estimate is also approached by the statements of the president, Pedro Sánchez, in recent weeks in various media. On August 31, the head of the Executive announced on Cadena Ser the creation of 6,000 reception places; a figure that rose to 10,000 places this week, according to what he asserted on El Intermedio. However, sources from the Single Command clarify that these places are only for adults. That is, to know how many people remained in Ceuta, those 10,000 would still have to be added to the 2,140 registered minors reported by Torres, knowing that the Single Command estimates there may be between 700 and 1,000 more still unregistered.
The sum of the 5,789 returns since August 10, the 4,160 people occupying temporary places, and the 2,140 registered minors so far equals 12,089 people. A figure that can still grow and that is closer to the estimate of the Ceuta Government, which confidently speaks of at least 13,000. And experts, as this newspaper publishes today, even point to 20,000.
According to these calculations, the unknown that is still to be resolved is the number of people who entered Ceuta on July 30 and 31. What if more than 80,000 arrived? What if 70,000 never returned?
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