Around 2,000 undocumented migrants remain in Ceuta, while local authorities put the number as high as 3,000 to 5,000, after deadly mass migrant crossings from Morocco into the Spanish enclave. Spain’s government says the city is gradually returning to calm, but the numbers tell a harsher story: people who crossed a militarized border are still stuck inside a small enclave, waiting under police watch and uncertainty.
Who Pays for the Border
On Tuesday, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said around 70,000 of the roughly 72,000 migrants who crossed into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco last week have since returned to Morocco. That leaves thousands still in Ceuta, where the state’s answer has been more control, more barriers, and more patrols. Spain has installed a 500-meter-long pneumatic barrier in the waters between Ceuta and Morocco in response to the border crisis. The barrier stands 30 to 70 centimeters above water and extends about a meter below, and authorities say it is meant to create a physical boundary at sea for law enforcement to better manage the situation.
That’s the language of order. The reality is a border made harder to cross for people with nowhere else to go.
Among those who crossed is 23-year-old Abdul Karim, who said he and friends swam for over three hours from Morocco last weekend before reaching Ceuta. He is sheltering in a temporary city center facility while waiting to learn what comes next. “We want to go to mainland Spain to work. It’s hard to find jobs in Morocco, so we hope to find work in Spain. Swimming here was very difficult. At one point, I thought I was going to drown. Some people just disappeared while trying to swim across,” he said.
What the State Calls Management
Guardia Civil officers stationed at one of the main border gates said many of the migrants who entered Ceuta illegally in recent days have largely returned to Morocco through this gate, and the area has now returned to relative calm. That calm comes with patrols. In the center of Ceuta, some shops have reopened for business, but many storefronts remain shuttered and police patrols are still a common sight.
The city relies heavily on cross-border trade, port logistics and tourism, and the impact of the migrant crisis is likely to linger for some time. Those are the economic gears that keep Ceuta moving, and they’re the same gears that grind when the border tightens and the state starts sorting human beings into legal and illegal bodies.
Ceuta is on the Mediterranean coast of northwestern Africa near the Strait of Gibraltar and borders Morocco. The recent surge of illegal crossings from the Moroccan side has triggered the most severe border migration crisis Spain has faced in recent years. The crisis didn’t arrive as a mystery. It arrived at a border, where state power decides who may pass, who gets trapped, and who gets pushed back into the sea of paperwork, fences, and armed enforcement.
The People Left Behind
Abdul Karim’s account cuts through the official phrasing. He and his friends swam for over three hours. He thought he was going to drown. Some people disappeared. While the Spanish government counts returns and the Guardia Civil reports relative calm, the people at the bottom are left in temporary facilities, on shuttered streets, and under the watch of police.
The enclave may be “gradually returning to calm” for officials and shopkeepers, but that calm sits on top of a border regime that turned a desperate crossing into a mass crisis and then answered it with a pneumatic barrier, law enforcement, and more control over movement.