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Hundreds of migrants swim from Morocco to Spanish territory
Hundreds of migrants swam from Morocco to the Spanish territory of Ceuta on Wednesday, July 29, overwhelming border reception facilities as authorities responded to an unusually large increase in sea crossings.
Ceuta officials said migrant crossings by sea usually increased during the summer because of favorable weather, but described the current number of swimmers as unusual.
“In the last few days, more than 1,500 migrants, including adults and minors, have reached Ceuta by sea,” the head of Ceuta's government, Juan Jesús Vivas, told journalists.
“The reception centers are collapsed and saturated.”
Those attempting the crossing were mainly Moroccans, along with a smaller number of Algerians who had been living in Morocco while trying to reach Europe, according to activists in Morocco and Ceuta.
Vivas said migrants had previously died while attempting the crossing and that 60 bodies had been found at sea during the past year.
Spain's Interior Ministry, which oversees border security and monitors irregular migration, did not confirm the number of crossings or state how many migrants had reached Ceuta by swimming.
The ministry referred journalists to its bimonthly migration report, with the next report expected on Monday, August 3.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska acknowledged in an interview with Spanish television channel laSexta that authorities were facing “an extraordinary, exceptional situation.”
He said, “we are dealing with it with the means that we already have deployed there permanently.”
Spain's Civil Guard, Maritime Rescue Services, and the Red Cross used boats to rescue swimmers before transporting them to Ceuta.
Hundreds of migrants were sleeping outside an overcrowded migrant reception centre after the facility exceeded its capacity.
Vivas expressed concern over a Spanish Supreme Court ruling issued earlier this month that established migrants arriving by sea could not be immediately returned across the border without due process, unlike those entering Spain by land, such as by climbing the border fence.
However, some activists, including Omar Naji, president of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights in Eastern Morocco, questioned whether the ruling had caused the increase. He said most Moroccans would not have been aware of such legal decisions.
