Local government in Ceuta warns of an "unsustainable" situation for migrant minors
The local government leader in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta said on Wednesday that the large number of children still present there, following the return of a significant number of irregular migrants last week, had created a situation that “cannot continue,” and he appealed to the national government for assistance.
Madrid stated that it had returned 70,000 of the 72,000 migrants who entered the Spanish enclave in North Africa on July 30 to neighboring Morocco. The scenes sparked anger among some European Union governments, which called on Spain to take a tougher stance on irregular migration.
Around 2,500 migrants remain in Ceuta, including hundreds of unaccompanied minors, facing dire conditions due to difficulties in accessing food, water, shelter, and sanitation services.
Ceuta’s local government leader, Juan Jesús Vivas, told public broadcaster RTVE that authorities are currently caring for 1,100 migrant minors, while the theoretical capacity of reception centers does not exceed 90 people.
Vivas, a member of the main opposition party, the conservative People’s Party (PP), said the situation “simply cannot continue,” pointing to “high risks to public order and security” as reception centers are at full capacity.
A Reuters correspondent observed groups of migrant minors wandering the streets of Ceuta on Wednesday, gathering in parks and on beaches, while authorities continued efforts to identify them and secure accommodation.
Miguel Ángel Pérez, the highest-ranking Spanish government representative in Ceuta, acknowledged on Wednesday that there were minors “on the streets of Ceuta,” adding that this was a priority and a source of “great concern.”
The organization Save the Children estimated that around 1,000 minors among the migrants still in Ceuta were “without protection.”
Any move to transfer children to different parts of Spain under existing legal provisions is likely to face resistance from conservative People’s Party-held regions and the anti-immigration far-right Vox party.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Youth and Childhood announced an emergency funding package of 25 million euros ($29 million) to support the care of minors in the small Ceuta enclave, which has a population of 84,000.
Spanish judicial authorities raised the death toll from last week’s incident to 78 after a body was recovered on Wednesday night.
For its part, Morocco’s Interior Ministry announced on Sunday that 11 people had died on the Moroccan side of the border, with all but one drowning while attempting to swim around a barrier in the Mediterranean Sea.
Vivas stated that he contacted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s office on July 27 to warn him that hundreds of migrants had entered Ceuta from Morocco and that “we were heading toward a serious problem.”
The following day, Vivas said he had asked the Interior Ministry to declare a state of national emergency, but was told this was “legally impossible.”
He added, “We gave sufficient warning that the situation was escalating significantly and that it was necessary to take exceptional measures.”
However, the government insisted it had not received prior warning regarding the actual scale of the crisis.
