Migrants in Ceuta, Burita: "If they have not been repatriated, ask Madrid"

Morocco's Foreign Minister, Naser Burita, stated that "if illegal migrants and minors have not been repatriated", after the mass entries into Ceuta on 30 and 31 July, we must ask Madrid and not Rabat why, pointing out that the Moroccan authorities are not the ones who "carry out these returns".

"If illegal immigrants have not been repatriated, if minors have not been returned, the question should not be asked of Morocco, but of Spain," Burita said in statements to the media at the end of a meeting with his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The head of Moroccan diplomacy, quoted by the Iberian media, including the Europa Press agency, repeated that "it is not Morocco that carries out the repatriations", pointing out that Rabat has found itself involved in "controversies, considerations, obstacles in quotation marks, and Spanish difficulties", despite the "will clearly expressed by the Moroccan authorities" to encourage the return of migrants who entered the Iberian exclave in North Africa irregularly.

After the wave of around 80 thousand migrants, most of whom returned to Morocco, at least 20 thousand people remained in the exclave and of these over 7 thousand have voluntarily returned to their country of origin since early August.

The Moroccan Foreign Minister's statements after a meeting with Albares in which they "addressed the return of irregular migrants who have remained in Ceuta since July 30 and who are not entitled to international protection", according to sources from the Spanish Foreign Ministry.