This Tuesday, the Government approved the creation of three new spaces to welcome immigrants who remain in Ceuta since the massive entry on July 30. The new locations will be deployed on plots of the city's port, land of the Ministry of Housing and a military barracks, which join the facilities already approved last week, and with which, in total, the Executive hopes to have more than 6,000 places to manage the files of each migrant and that there are fewer and fewer people wandering the streets or in improvised settlements such as the one on Trampolín beach.
In the decree approved this Tuesday, the Executive has eliminated the five sports centers that were initially listed as reception spaces, but that will finally not be inhabited after the frontal refusal of the Ceuta president, Juan Jesús Vivas, and the city's own population, to use these locations. Nor will the Military Hospital, the flour factory or the sports space at the IES Puerta del Campo be used, as originally planned.
On the other hand, three new spaces are incorporated that, as highlighted by the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, in the roundtable after the council, have been agreed upon "unanimously", with the desire to "affect as little as possible the day-to-day life and coexistence of Ceuta residents" and taking into account that they need these locations to "shorten the deadlines" for immigration. Thus, the new locations added to the decree are "plots" in areas of the port of Ceuta that, Torres said, are "further from urban centers"; land transferred by the Ministry of Housing; and a K-8 cantonment, also known as the Costa K-8 Battery, located northwest of the city.
Torres has defended the need to have these spaces to proceed with the identification of migrants who are still on the streets and begin the procedures for their return. According to him, since the beginning of the crisis a month ago, the number of places has multiplied by seven. "It is an unprecedented boost, because compared to the approximately 500 places of CETI's usual capacity that existed before July 30, 2026, we now have more than 3,400 additional places and another 3,000 places corresponding to spaces already assigned will be added to them," he stressed. The new facilities join the first camps deployed in Loma Colmenar and Loma Margarita two weeks ago.
This Monday the first transfers began to the spaces that were enabled last week, where almost 800 people had already settled, "many mothers with children": 300 people are already in the Equestrian spaces and around 500 have been welcomed in the Embolsamiento, according to Territorial Policy, which also points out that they are already working to enable the new locations, although they do not specify when they will be available.
"I understand that there is an anxiety for this to be normalized as soon as possible," said the minister, who has also stressed that these 800 migrants will now be able to be correctly affiliated once they are installed in the reception spaces, which means that "the reverse march begins so that they can be returned."
More than 1,600 minors
Regarding the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors, the head of Territorial Policy and Single Command of the crisis has said that there are already a total of 1,612 children and adolescents affiliated, although he has acknowledged that it is most likely that "within two hours there will be more", because they continue to process files. Of them, 1,129 were registered after the massive entry on July 30, and the rest were already in the autonomous city before the event.
Torres has assured that it is "impossible" to give information on how many migrant minors would remain to be affiliated and has insisted on the need to be able to have reception spaces "as soon as possible" so that they can be affiliated and "proceed with the pertinent administrative procedures." The minister has stated that the main objective is the return or family reunification of the majority, but assumes that there will be cases in which, by international law and for the best interests of the minor, this cannot be.
