The Unified Association of Civil Guards (AUGC) criticized this Tuesday the management of the migration crisis in Ceuta after the massive entry of people at the end of July and has especially questioned the response of the administrations to care for those who remain in the city. "19 days have passed and now is when the first tents begin to rise to accommodate those who remain in the city," the organization denounced in a media appearance.
The association denounces that for almost three weeks thousands of people have remained "sleeping on the streets and in the mountains", while the CETI was collapsed. According to AUGC, attention to these people has largely fallen on "the residents of Ceuta, the Red Cross and social entities." The organization has given as an example the case of Sidi Embarek, where the neighborhood association set up a sports space "to accommodate more than 300 people, including women and girls," in the absence of a sufficient response.
For this reason, they have demanded a permanent reinforcement of 200 agents in Ceuta and the effective expansion of the Tarajal and Benzú breakwaters as the main measures to reinforce border security and prevent episodes such as the massive entry of migrants at the end of July from being repeated. The organization has insisted that the reinforcements of agents "cannot be temporary and disappear when the media focus on the city ceases to exist."
From AUGC they maintain that "what happened on July 30 and 31 was not unforeseeable", arguing that "the indicators were on the table before that night." According to what they indicate, reports from the Ministry of the Interior reflected 3,835 irregular entries between January and July 29, 164% more than the previous year, while irregular arrivals fell by 15.7% in Spain as a whole and by 59.6% in the Canary Islands. Furthermore, he pointed out that in the ten days prior to the episode between 1,500 and 2,000 people had accessed or attempted to access the city and that the call on social networks had been visible for weeks.
Ceuta cannot be a "thermometer" of the "bilateral relationship"
On the other hand, the association has questioned whether the security of the border depends excessively on the situation of relations with Morocco. "What happens in this perimeter cannot continue to be the x-ray of how the bilateral relationship with the neighboring country is going," he stated, although he recognized that cooperation with Morocco is "essential." In this sense, they demand more personnel, infrastructure and their own means to anticipate future migration episodes.
From AUGC, they point out that the current assistance situation for migrants has direct repercussions on security, this assistance situation also has consequences on security. The association maintains that the lack of accommodation and a rapid administrative response "generate tension, generate incidents and require permanent police presence" in areas of the city. "The reception failure becomes, by pure accumulation, a police problem," he warned.
The civil guards have also demanded that the identification and processing of the files of people who still remain in Ceuta be accelerated. According to their data, "more than 300 intervention unit personnel have been deployed in front of 26 Immigration and Borders officials" in charge of processing the administrative situation of thousands of people. AUGC considers that this disproportion makes rapid management difficult, and they demand "a fully guaranteeing, but fast process."
