The population of Ceuta has faced the migration crisis in different ways. Some of their neighbors have rolled up their sleeves and stepped up to the plate in the face of the presence of thousands of migrants on their streets, among them very vulnerable people, such as women and children, whom they have tried to protect from mistreatment, humiliation or sexual abuse. Neighborhood associations, such as those in El Príncipe, Sidi Embarek or Loma Colmenar, neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city and with a Muslim majority, have been doing the rest for a month while reinforcements from the administrations arrived. They have organized themselves to care for the most disadvantaged, in sports centers or by taking them to the Police or to juvenile centers, while at the same time mediating in the conflicts that this crisis generated among their neighbors. Their phones haven't stopped ringing, they feel exhausted, but they've kept going. The NGO Luna Blanca, which has been focused on eradicating hunger and social exclusion in the most vulnerable neighborhoods of the city for more than 35 years, is among them. Its spokesperson, Halima Ahmed, perfectly summarizes the feelings of the neighborhood leaders and the reasons for these weeks of effort: “The fatigue that we all have with this situation is not at odds with humanity.”
Halima Hamed: “We get five out of four pots”
This Monday was the first day since July 30 that Halima Ahmed had been able to rest. “We have worked all day, without a schedule, it has been non-stop,” summarizes Ahmed, who, in addition to being a spokesperson, is a social educator.
A little over a week ago, on Sunday, August 23, Ahmed left his organization's industrial kitchen, located next to the Sidi Embarek mosque, with the details of that day's food distribution in his head: 450 meals for the El Príncipe neighborhood complex, 300 for the Queen's sports center; both occupied by women, minor girls and children. Another 894 meals went to the Embolsamiento de Loma Colmenar reception center, dependent on the Government, and 850 to an informal settlement in the Polígono de El Tarajal. 2,500 meals for migrants came from their stoves. “We get five out of four pots, but we don't perform miracles,” he said jokingly. “We started with our resources and now it is the companies that manage the reception spaces or the autonomous city who have commissioned us to do it,” he explains.
La Luna Blanca, which already gave lunch to a hundred families in Ceuta without resources, and another hundred elderly and disabled people, as well as people living on the streets, added new mouths to feed. Every day they receive the waste, leftover products, brought to them by supermarkets in the city and they see what they can use. They also receive donations from the Peninsula and very small income, “two euros or four euros” from individuals in Valencia or Catalonia. “Even though it's small, it's what they have, well, they're super grateful,” he says.
Next to their headquarters they have a tent that they had used as a soup kitchen. Since it was empty, they sheltered 30 families of mothers with their children. In one of the rooms of the building another thirty migrant minors sleep on mats. “The kids have put on the NGO's green t-shirts and are helping us distribute the food,” he says. This day they also lent a hand in the kitchen, splitting beans.
The Luna Blanca spokesperson regrets the image this week in which several people tried to stop the distribution of Red Cross food in their city. “Some overbearing person has scolded us, telling us that we are partly to blame for [the migrants] being here,” he comments. “A delivery person, who is from Ceuta, has been told to return to his country,” he adds. He also complains that some media outlets have discredited his work by attributing false actions to them. “We are the first to advise them to go to their country and even more so now that the president has ruined their plans by saying that they will not go to the Peninsula,” he adds.
Abdellah Mustafa: “There were young girls who were promised everything”
Abdellah Mustafa, president of the residents of Sidi Embarek, realized, just a week after the grand entrance on July 30 and 31, that they had to intervene. "There were young girls wandering around, they went with people who promised them everything, it was chaos, it was unbreathable. They were exposed to anything," he summarizes. On August 6 they welcomed 55 people, on the second day 60 went and on the third day 195, 132 of them minors. The president of the neighbors, barely 26 years old, has learned to manage between 30 or 40 conflicts a day, and has surrounded himself with a large number of volunteers, including his mother, Karima Mustafá, who have put order in the lives of the migrants. Between their camp, today moved to the White Moon tent, and that of the Prince's neighbors, they have attended about 800 people.
His mother set entry and exit times so that the more than 300 women and children would not disturb the neighbors. In a quick tour of their facilities, when they were at the sports center in the La Reina neighborhood, they explained their shower system, which looked like flea market changing rooms, and in which women washed themselves with a hose. They had limited time. “Otherwise, they spent the day underwater,” he says with a smile. The female volunteers moved behind a counter, where they stacked toiletries and food packages. “We have broken the brushes from cleaning the sports center floor so much,” he said.
Ahmed Enfed-dal: “We thought it was going to be three or five days”
Ahmed Enfed-dal, president of the Prince's neighbors, is another of the neighborhood leaders who has had a heart attack for a month. “After the avalanche, we saw that there were girls who were going to the mountains and we decided that they should stay in the association,” he details. “We thought it was going to be three or five days, to give the institutions time to move, but they are still in conditions that are not dignified,” he says. This Monday, their camp breathed a sigh of relief with the departure of 180 adult women with children, pregnant women and single women to a Government reception center, located at the Equestrian headquarters. But they still have 350 unaccompanied migrant minors left. There are days when there are 10 or 15 volunteers and others only four or five, he summarizes. "Without all the organizations that have helped us, such as Luna Blanca, Elin, Sur Acoge, Humanitarians Without Borders, Women in the Conflict Zone, we would not have been able to hold on. We are very tired, I am a ghost, I don't even know how I walk, but since we have gotten involved, until the last girl leaves, we are not going to stop."
Rafael García: “Let them provide a facility in the best conditions and do what they have to do”
