The tiny Cafés Carrión stand, a stall located just across the border from Ceuta to Castillejos, had never recorded a turnover similar to that accumulated this Friday. By midafternoon, a line of police, gendarmes, soldiers and secret agents snaked past his buoyant business. The strong coffees, the sweet palm trees and, above all, the half-liter bottles of very fresh water that were already scarce in his refrigerator were flying at full speed.
"Is there twice as much security as usual?" we asked Abdel, his only dependent.
-No, no, much more.
-The quintuple?
-More, more, more...
Abdel has just served coffee to a couple of soldiers, looks around and quickly bends the ten fingers of his hand a couple of times: "Twenty more times!"
It is enough to take a look around your position so that your figures do not seem exaggerated. At first glance you can see fifty police cars, as many milk trucks, as well as numerous ambulances, tanks and four mammoth riot trucks, with the red-green stripes of the Moroccan flag clearly visible on their blue backs. Furthermore, a hundred meters higher, in the hills that surround the border, dozens of scouts monitor everything that happens, sheltered from the scorching sun under white umbrellas, while hundreds of meters of newly installed concertina wires block the way to the beaches that extend below them.
All this deployment is part of Morocco's lock in the face of the dreaded 15-A. This is the day marked by tens of thousands of Internet users to, presumably, try to cross into Ceuta in an uncontrolled manner. But it seems that the Alawite regime does not want a repeat of the massive invasion of a couple of weeks ago. "15-A is a very important day for us," confirms the head of the police deployed on the border, dressed in civilian clothes with a navy blue polo shirt, while sipping on a bottle of water.
The questions ask themselves. Why is such an overwhelming device being set up right now? Why was there so much passivity in the face of the human wave of 15 days ago? And what has changed between both dates so that the regime has turned Castillejos into a ground zero of quasi-war overtones in such a short space of time?
"We are facing the second part of a strategy perfectly designed by Morocco," diagnoses Luis Mayandía, head of the Central Unit of Illegal Immigration Networks and Documentary Falsities (UCRIF) of the National Police until his retirement three months ago. «First, the regime allows a huge avalanche in Ceuta after a campaign on social networks. Two weeks later, it imposes absolute control after spreading a similar threat... In other words, it is a textbook hybrid war action. And the recipient of this message is the European Union: they want to make it clear that, if they are interested in controlling illegal immigration, they must negotiate directly with Rabat. For that, they suggest, it would be advisable for Ceuta and Melilla to be in their hands.
For this second phase to go as planned, the Moroccan security forces have set up a device so strict that it borders on paranoia. It is enough to see someone recording in the border area for a police officer to immediately demand to see the images and delete them immediately.
The presence of thousands of agents is not only perceived at the border crossing, but throughout the border city. There are orders to monitor groups of young people, those most likely to swim across 15-A seduced by messages on social networks. The code tag #haraga (burners) and today's date accumulates millions of views on X, Instagram and TikTok. The messages try to convince the kids that the Ceuta border will be open for 24 hours, coinciding with the holiday in Spain, despite the outright denial from the authorities.
Even stricter is the control over minors, who cannot walk down the street without the company of an adult. "The kids who want to get to Ceuta are more hidden than ever," says a local businessman with links to the secret services of both countries. "The police and military presence has no known precedents."
It is hard to believe that, just 15 days ago, tens of thousands of residents crossed this border in broad daylight. Today, however, no one admits their Spanish dream, much less in front of a stranger. "You won't find them, but they are all those around you," says the aforementioned businessman. "The kid at the store, the bouncer in the parking lot, the one who serves you in the cafeteria... They would all emigrate illegally if they could, but they must wait for the right time."
Next to the promenade, a burly teenager, dressed in an Mbappé Madrid shirt, is the first who dares to break the omertá. Using the mobile translator, he details an apartment block on the outskirts where a group of friends are hiding who plan to swim to Ceuta this Saturday. "I'm the security person, go there and they'll tell you," he says with a smile.
The meeting takes place in a social housing neighborhood with whitewashed walls, light blue borders and rooftops covered with satellite dishes. On the stairs of the block, the chants of Friday, a Muslim holy day, sound while the women cook dinner. Several neighbors peek through the curtains and leave as soon as they are detected. But no one answers the doorbell of the indicated apartment: if the future migrants are inside, they have decided to continue in the dark.
As you exit the building, it is clear that word of a stranger's presence has already spread. A well-made twenty-something, the one who speaks the best English in the neighborhood, makes the official slogan of his government clear. "Morocco is the best country in the world and no one would want to leave here," he says. «In addition, it is illegal to ask people questions on the street. "You better get out of here now."
A beautiful neighbor follows our steps until she is alone and approaches discreetly. Only then does she dare to come forward to tell what, according to her, is happening, a version curiously similar to the regime's message. "My two nephews swam to Ceuta two weeks ago, but they have returned because they cannot live there," says the woman, named Fatimouri. «This time, the Moroccan authorities found out about the plot in time and are collaborating with the Spanish authorities to avoid another tragedy. "Everything is the work of foreign powers that want to sow chaos in this country, taking advantage of youth without training or economic resources."
Juan Randó, former Spanish agent in northern Morocco, agrees with his diagnosis, who also denounces the "abandonment" of the area by our secret services since the beginning of the century. "There is a suggestion on social networks for tens of thousands of people to try to cross to Ceuta, where they believe they will live like Messi, have a mansion and drive a great car," he says. "We are completely at the service of Morocco's wishes: when they decide to send us migrants, their people respond like a pack."
Afternoon falls in Castillejos. The cafes fill with customers under the discreet surveillance of hundreds of agents. A young man suspiciously similar to the boy in the Mbappé shirt from hours before is sitting on the promenade. However, he puts on a poker face when we ask him about his colleagues who are eager to swim to Ceuta this 15-A: "Only Arabic, I don't speak Spanish, friend."
