Ceuta, Aug 3:
Ceuta over the weekend no longer looked like a city on edge, but the events of the week were still on everyone’s minds.
Most of the 60,000 migrants who swam, scrambled and later charged into the tiny Spanish exclave in North Africa this week had walked back to Morocco by Sunday, while others tried to blend in and stay on. Spanish civil guard ships continued searching for migrant bodies in the waters near the stretch of urban beach that tens of thousand of migrants had breached days earlier.
Shops in Ceuta reopened, and the usual blend of residents and tourists in the city of 84,000 were filling the open-air terraces, restaurants and cafes. But the city that prides itself on being home to four cultures was still grappling with the aftermath of the border surge, with locals disagreeing on what caused it and who exactly is to blame.
At least 72 migrants died, including some who drowned and others who were killed in a stampede to cross a breakwater barrier, Spanish authorities said Sunday. The humanitarian crisis caused by the sudden rush of people has reignited a debate around immigration in Europe and beyond.
“It’s not the young men’s fault,” said Mohamad Abdelkader Driss, 44, a waiter at a fried fish restaurant in town. “If you open the border, of course everyone comes in, but the young men aren’t to blame. The authorities are responsible.” Some migrants who returned to Morocco described a border that was effectively open and said authorities did little as they watched thousands of people cross.
The unauthorised arrivals on Thursday and Friday of 50,000 to 60,000, mostly young men, swelled Ceuta’s population by more than half. Abdelkader lamented what happened, but said that those who breached the border behaved relatively well. “It could have been much worse,” he said.
Over the weekend, far-right, anti-immigrant Spanish politicians and well-known right-wing influencers descended on the city, sparking counterprotests that included members of the Spanish city’s large Muslim population, many of whom are of Moroccan descent.