Mohamed Said Akbib, Mohamed Bikali, Acraf Benhakka, Abdeladim Zbirai, Anass Bouchkreen... There are dozens of minors living poorly in the last beach settlement in Ceuta. El Guano, a stone's throw from El Trampolín beach, has become the last shanty town built by migrants who entered the autonomous city in an avalanche on July 30 and 31.
Nervousness spreads with each visit and, especially children, they are quick to write down their names in any notebook that someone takes out and that may seem like a collection of data for their affiliation and transfer to one of the emergency centers scattered around the city. They do it in the journalist's name, some including their mobile phone number. Variegated letters, most of them in capital letters, so that they are well understood. It is of little use to try to explain to them that in the notebook they will not find the passport to a roof over their heads and a ration of food.
The eviction of El Trampolín, just a few days ago, by the National Police has turned El Guano into the refuge of many of those who were previously struggling on the nearby beach, who have joined those who were already settled there, around the tent and the showers that were urgently set up in the first weeks of the crisis. There are tents, but also shanties made of sticks and plastic and a black river of dirt runs through everything until it empties into the sea.
El Trampolín was empty in 48 hours, and after several frustrated attempts, at the beginning of this week, just a week before Ceuta received the visit of the Kings and just a few hours after Pedro Sánchez announced the call for early general elections. Everything indicates that the dismantling of Guano is going to be imminent.
"They say they are going to kick us out tomorrow," says one of those milling around next to a tent that delimits the beginning of the Guano camp. And this is confirmed by some volunteers, like Leyre, who come regularly to help them. especially the minors. Barely a hundred meters away, several National Police vans ensure that no one camps again in El Trampolín, where the backhoes continue to remove garbage by the tons. On the Sunday when the eviction began, 61 tons of waste were collected and another 160 the next day.
Although the majority of those evicted from the largest migrant settlement in Ceuta were transferred to the CATE offices in Tarajal for their affiliation and another important part - it is estimated that more than a thousand - decided to voluntarily return to Morocco through the same border that they violated at the end of July, there are hundreds who escaped the police siege and were distributed throughout the neighborhoods of the outskirts of Ceuta and the nearby mountains.
El Sarchal, El Príncipe, San José-Hadú (better known simply as Hadú) or Los Rosales have seen how in recent days, since the eviction of El Trampolín (more than 3,000 people were crowded there), dozens, hundreds of migrants expelled from the beaches have settled in their squares and streets, which has only aggravated the tension that already existed in these areas of the autonomous city.
The neighborhoods are, since the first days of the crisis, those that are suffering the most from the effects of the avalanche of more than 80,000 migrants who attacked the Tarajal border between July 30 and 31. The city center soon recovered relative normality, but on the periphery the coexistence, not always peaceful, with migrants has continued since then.
"Here we have at least 30 minors, 30 children, we are tired of calling for them to take them, but they don't listen to us," says Atika Abderrahman, a resident of Los Rosales. Next to his house, as soon as he leaves the door, there are improvised stalls with tarps, plastic and mattresses on which minors and several dozen adult men sleep.
"They are not bad, but we can't take it anymore, we are fed up," says this woman from Ceuta, who criticizes, along with other neighbors, the inaction of the security forces. This same Wednesday, an operation from the Police Intervention Unit (UIP) of the National Police was deployed through the streets of the neighborhood, but "they have done nothing," he complains.
The migrants, upon seeing the agents, start running "and return when the Police leave," adds Atika, who insists on the need to dismantle the shanties that have proliferated through the labyrinth of alleys of Los Rosales. While that happens, or not, the residents of the neighborhood continue to complain, living with the night noise and fights - "among themselves" - but without stopping providing assistance. "They are people, we can't leave them lying there," says Zaida, another resident of Los Rosales.
Another consequence of the evictions is a greater demand for the so-called patera apartments, in which up to fifteen people share space and pay around a thousand euros. But those are privileged.
These days, when it has started to rain in Ceuta, migrants have been seen trying to take refuge under plastic in the middle of the street or, directly, enduring the falling water, soaked and resigned.
