Spain, trapped in Ceuta without work or family: the paradox of migrants who risk their lives to return home

In an upside-down world it happens that a goal coveted every year by tens of thousands of migrants in search of the promised land is transformed, for others desperate, into a nightmare from which to escape. All this happens now to Ceuta, one of the two Spanish enclaves together with Melilla along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. Commuter-workers Moroccans blocked in Spanish territory by the pandemic emergency and by the security measures by their respective border authorities, determined to do anything to go home, even to die. Over the last weekend two men managed to re-enter the country of origin risking to freeze or drown. In the end they made it. With the iron wall now made impassable by the recent intervention of Spanish government which raised it up to touch i 10 meters, replacing the sharp spikes with wooden cylinders, the only solution remains that by sea. And so with strong waves and a very low water temperature, the two dived circumnavigating the iron barriers in the two sealing sections, to Tarajal it’s at Benzù (on the opposite side of Ceuta, the western one towards Tangier). The iron heart of the barriers enters the sea for a few tens of meters making it risky to swim to bypass them, but the two desperate men succeeded in the enterprise without the customs police being able to intervene. They are not the first, other cases have occurred in the previous months, but with conditions clearly better, and they will not be the last.

If until last March a Ceuta the game of life saw the usual two fronts on the pitch, on the one hand i migrants arriving from all over the African continent and from the other authority Spanish committed to controlling the impassability of the iron wall, now things are changing. The nightmare of the pandemic from Coronavirus has upset the migratory phenomenon. TO Ceuta no one enters anymore and only attempts to overcome the barriers artificial to protect the community territory they take place on the contrary. The phenomenon affects thousands of Moroccans locked inside the town of Ceuta since March 13, when the governments of Madrid e Rabat have decided to seal the border crossing of Tarajal II. A sudden closure that decided almost ten months ago that surprised migrants for work, women in particular residing in Moroccan towns and villages near the border, Fnideq, Castillejos, Belyounech and others. A situation crystallized by the risk of contagion from Covid-19.

The two governments, in total agreement, they opened for the return of a part of the women and gods children Moroccans stuck in Ceuta in three blocks, from May onwards, but at least 1,200 North Africans are still trapped, far from loved ones and the majority without work. As mentioned above, they are mostly women. Before the pandemic, they went to Ceuta on a regular basis to take up service, especially as maid e caregivers among the families of the Spanish enclave. Often hired in black, they took care of Senior citizens or housework by living in those houses with the possibility of returning from sons and husbands once a week or a month depending on the contract stipulated on paper or on parole. With the arrival of the pandemic for them a real has begun nightmare, throw out of the house, the work lost, insulated inside structures made available by the Spanish authorities, including one nave huge moored at the port. Not to mention the female porters, the so-called ‘shoulder’, which to find a source of income they carry loads of goods on their backs across the border to limit the transport costs of companies. They too are blocked without any form of income and away from home.

Human tragedies other than the drama of migration toEurope, yet hard to accept. From March Ceuta has turned into a place of absolute despair, yet the pandemic mixed with the stories of the blocked Moroccans has activated a form of solidarity from below: “At the beginning all the Moroccans present in Ceuta were quarantined in closed facilities, especially on a ship that had not been used until then and was hastily set up – he explains Mj Reduan |, member of the association Digmun Ceuta and general secretary of the CGT union -. Among them were regular and non-regular people, workers often employed illegally, that is the most difficult to repatriate as they are not included in the official lists. At the moment there are only positive people on board the ship Covid or subject to the quarantine. Once out, these people are left to their fate. If it had not been for the healthy part of the population of Ceuta many would have died and we activists have tried to stimulate the spirit of solidarity of the inhabitants of Ceuta. Generous who have made theirs available case, garage, deposits of property and so on to give those desperate people a roof over their heads. There are not only women, but also many children, young people and even men “.

It is they, men adults, the only ones able to succeed in the enterprise of attempting the clandestine return to Morocco. Basically they don’t exist alternative from the moment the Spanish government has not activated other measures: “The frontier between Morocco e Spain remains closed and there are no confirmations on any reopenings o measures to ease the situation of blocked Moroccans – adds the activist of Moroccan origins but resident in Ceuta -. Nothing whatsoever, the Spanish government, consequently the local authorities, is confirmed as incompetent and inhuman. The pandemic has aggravated economic problems in Ceuta, but above all in the neighboring Moroccan cities due to the total blockade and the loss of many places of work. The two governments continue to remain totally passive ”.

The Covid and the strengthened wall changed the routes of African migration. Enter a Ceuta e Melilla it has become difficult, but also useless and even dangerous, with the risk of being trapped for a long time. Better to try your luck by aiming for sea travel, always highly risky, towards the Atlantic islands of the Spain, or towards the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

Meanwhile, the 2021 it opened with a passage, far from cryptic, of the television interview released by the Moroccan premier Saad Eddin al-Othmani to an Arab channel. Al-Othmani confirmed its intention to reopen the dossier of an agreement between Morocco e Spain his Ceuta e Melilla which is lost in history, to “put an end to more than five centuries of occupation” and thus regain control of the two cities under lock and key. The government’s response was dry and rapid Sanchez who, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, immediately summoned the Moroccan ambassador to Madrid, Karima Benyaich, for ‘resentful consultations’.

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