A group of Moroccan minors between 15 and 17 years old are stationed at the gates of the camp that the Government opened on Friday on the port grounds. Four of them do not have a place inside nor have they yet been registered in any official census. They are part of those thousands of immigrants who have not yet had access to a canvas roof, a shower or a dry mattress. Inside they also offer plugs to charge your cell phone and a Wi-Fi connection. This Sunday they will return to Benítez Beach to sleep in the immense settlement of shanties and tents that populate this urban sandy area and also the neighboring El Trampolín.
It is difficult to imagine that they have abandoned their homes and their families to risk their lives by swimming and settling in the precariousness of some shanties on the beach. The family reunification that the authorities talk about is not an option for them. Somehow, they think they are going to protect them. If not today it will be tomorrow. And they are not considering returning.
"If these children return to Morocco, they are not going to receive them with flowers," explains Ismail, a resident of Ceuta who years ago, more than a decade ago, also arrived in Spain from Morocco looking for work and today is surprised by the "naivety" of those who think that a massive return of the more than 10,000 (the city authorities speak of up to 20,000) immigrants who continue to wander the streets of Ceuta is still possible. «They are already here and they want to work. They are very tough people. Why doesn't Spain take advantage of the strength they represent? I have my roots in Morocco but I owe everything to Spain. And they will think the same in a few years if given the opportunity.
At the moment, minors and adults aspire to get the bracelet that identifies them as residents of one of the camps installed in the city, in the Port (1,700 places) and also in Loma Margarita (1,300 places), Loma Colmenar (1,200 places) in the Hípica (320 places) or in the CETI (500 places). In these improvised centers to begin to put order in the immigration disaster of the last 50 days, the first steps are taken to register residents. Wearing the bracelet makes them think that they are closer to being transferred to the peninsula or even to asylum.
On the port grounds, a group of workers are working on erecting new tents. There will likely be new relocations in the coming days and Abedellatif, Ilyas and Omar will return every day until that happens to try again.
Those who did succeed were Mourad Mouzane, Anas Grich and Mouad Lemaadlem. They give their names and also their profession: painter, mechanic, cook. It's your business card. They would like to get to Bilbao, they point out, using the translation service of a mobile application with ease. They walk up and down Juan de Borbón Avenue, where there are soldiers guarding practically every corner.
The pressure is maintained
It is enough to walk the promenades of the Benítez and Trampolín beaches to see that the eviction operation undertaken by the Government has not in any way alleviated the pressure. The shanties left behind by the rehoused have been occupied again. The camp even seems to have grown in the last two days. The official figures have fallen very short, as hundreds of immigrants who hid for weeks in the mountains of Ceuta and even overcrowded in homes, ground floors, porches and even rented roof terraces have begun to become visible.
Another camp has been set up in the center of the city, but this fictitious and symbolic one, in Plaza Reyes, in front of the headquarters of the Government Subdelegation. There the Citizen Forum to Help Ceuta gathered again this Saturday to demand the return of normality to the streets and beaches of the city, and invoked the right of children and adults to recover their routines in public spaces. Its spokesperson, Noelia Alcázar, insisted that "what is not normal cannot be normalized," and demanded from the authorities, "from all of them, whoever governs, real and lasting solutions."
For Ismail, who observes from a distance the entrances and exits of the Port camp, the demands of the residents of Ceuta are legitimate: «But this phenomenon is not going to stop. And it is not a Ceuta problem, it is a global problem.
