Humanitarian crisis in Ceuta: overcrowding and fear of expulsion complicate health care

If we resort to cold figures, as the Minister of Health, Mónica García, did yesterday, Ceuta is not suffering any health collapse after the latest assault on the border. The healthcare pressure in the autonomous city has been decreasing since the first day of the mass crossing, when 1,149 people were treated: last Saturday 193 were registered. The University Hospital of Ceuta has expanded its capacity to 212 places, of which around half are currently empty. There are 101 patients admitted, but the immigrants who occupy a bed do not reach thirty.

However, on the ground, in the outskirts of the city, where hundreds of immigrants still remain crowded, another reality emerges: injured and sick people without health care for fear that a visit to the doctor will become their passport for expulsion.

One of those margins where immigrants live are the warehouses of El Tarajal, which years ago were the epicenter of the so-called atypical trade, with which thousands of women carried goods on their shoulders from one side of the border to the other. The famous porters. Now, without a permanent police or military presence, not even in the immediate vicinity, the sidewalks of the industrial estate have been transformed into a camp of rows of shacks, in which the construction fences serve as walls and the sheets serve as a roof. If the bulk of sub-Saharan immigrants concentrate on El Trampolín beach, which is still packed, this point brings together Moroccan families, with children, who refuse to return to their country. They are not refugees, but economic immigrants, who took advantage of the last avalanche to cross into Spain. This is demonstrated by a white canvas on which they themselves have painted “we have a job, invest in us.”

A few minutes after 11:00, the streets that seemed uninhabited begin to boil. Word has spread that a caravan of Doctors of the World has just arrived. It is the second time he has come. On Saturday, 16 days after the crossing, the international organization was able to provide its first healthcare assistance there. Such has been the abandonment of these people that the health workers treated infected wounds that the migrants received the day they crossed irregularly. Volunteer doctors, helped by NGO interpreters, go where the State does not. Two rows. In one the kids; in another the women. Although the problems are repeated over and over again: cuts on the legs, skin infections or head trauma, gastroenteritis or fever. After passing the inspection they return to their makeshift homes. There is not a single portable public toilet in the estate. Nor a shower.

After the Doctors of the World caravan arrives a team from Save the Children, which estimates that there are more than 4,000 minors who remain outside the Ceuta protection system, pending being identified, located and referred to social services. The teenagers run towards them after seeing the volunteers' notebooks and pens. “I lesser, lesser, lesser,” they repeat. In less than an hour, the list full of names and surnames reaches a hundred. And more and more kids keep joining the improvised queues to put things in order.

The head of Health, who yesterday defended from Ceuta not associating immigration with disease because she is xenophobic, did admit the humanitarian crisis. That there is a public health risk in Ceuta derived from the overcrowding of foreigners, placing the epidemiological danger at a “moderate” level for migrants and “low” for Ceuta residents. Mónica García confirmed that two cases of tuberculosis have been detected so far: one of a minor who already arrived with a diagnosis and treatment started in Morocco, and another of a patient from Ceuta with symptoms of the disease. He also reported the existence of “some cases” of positive Mantoux, the test that detects possible exposure to tuberculosis or previous vaccination, which are being referred to the hospital for additional tests, and 18 cases of gastroenteritis.

When asked by journalists why the Government is not being able to care for the people who remain on the streets of the periphery if, on paper, there is no health collapse or shortage of medical professionals, García answered that "the most urgent health action" is outside the hospital and outside the health centers, primarily involving "providing healthy conditions for migrants, water, hygiene, cleanliness and food." “Shelter them, give them shelter,” he summarized in the press conference held 17 days after the crossing.

The central government has asked the authorities of the autonomous city to enable and provide more spaces where immigrants can remain in minimally human conditions, which can prevent possible outbreaks, in addition to carrying out adequate epidemiological control. It is not being an easy task. With tempers becoming increasingly heated, with the inhabitants of the peripheral neighborhoods denouncing the grievance regarding the city center, which appears to be recovered, the residents refuse to allow facilities for immigrants to be set up near their homes. Last week, after the president of Ceuta, Juan Vivas, proposed creating a center to confine migrants until their expulsion, dozens of people took to the streets to show their rejection of the old Flour Factory being the place chosen due to its proximity to several residential areas.

The week in which 20 days have passed since the crossing in which at least 141 people died, according to humanitarian organizations, begins today with an extraordinary government council that Vivas has convened to adopt “the decisions that are deemed pertinent.” This is what a brief statement read in which it was also warned that Ceuta, which yesterday recovered normality on its border after the military armor from Morocco, “is in danger.”

For its part, Moncloa maintains its presence in the autonomous city today with the visit of the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, who has on the agenda to learn about the humanitarian assistance device, in addition to meeting with Vivas to address the needs of the city. "She is the sixth minister to land in Ceuta after the crisis broke out on July 30. Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Ángel Víctor Torres, José Manuel Albares, Margarita have already passed through the city Robles and Sira Rego.