Immigrants return to occupy the El Trampolín beach in Ceuta after their eviction and cleaning

Hundreds of immigrants have returned to occupy El Trampolín beach in Ceuta this Friday after the evacuation of the area to undertake cleaning tasks. In recent days, this beach has become the true epicenter of the migration crisis that the autonomous city is going through since the massive entry on July 30 and July 31.

Early this Friday morning, the immigrants - then all North Africans - were grouped between a breakwater and the wall of the Ceuta desalination plant. Meanwhile, cleaning workers began to arrive at the place to sweep and disinfect the place. The condition that the city set this Thursday for the beach to be cleaned was, precisely, to guarantee the safety of the workers.

While the employees - escorted by the Police - worked on cleaning and the immigrants who had spent the night in El Trampolín waited in a specific area, other immigrants began to arrive, in this case sub-Saharans who in many cases carried bags of food previously delivered by the different non-governmental organizations that work with immigrant groups.

In any case, as spokespersons for organizations such as Elin have said, the immigrants will remain in El Trampolín as long as they have no other place to spend the night.

The central government and the Autonomous City of Ceuta continue working on expanding the reception capacity with the preparation and conditioning of three other locations: the Montesa football field number 3, the esplanade of the old guano factory and the Equestrian facilities.

These spaces are part of the device designed to address the situation generated after the massive entry of migrants recorded on July 30 and 31.

Police sources point out that a good part of the people who gathered again this Friday in El Trampolín could come from groups of migrants who were scattered throughout different parts of the city.

According to these sources, some would have interpreted that staying on the beach may constitute a preliminary step to later access some of the temporary reception resources enabled by the administrations.

The situation shows the difficulties in keeping the settlement vacated after yesterday more than 1,200 migrants were transferred from El Trampolín to Loma Margarita and the Embolsamiento of Loma Colmenar, since hours later dozens of them returned to the beach, apparently to recover belongings, which forced the cleaning work to be temporarily paralyzed due to the lack of police presence to guarantee the safety of the workers.