Hundreds of migrants, including sub-Saharans, swam across the arm of the sea on Monday, May 17, which separates Fnideq from the occupied president of Sebta in northern Morocco.
According to local sources, they numbered nearly 3,000 by nightfall. According to testimonies from residents of Sebta, taking advantage of the good weather, these migrants crossed the inlet in groups of 300 people, which overwhelmed the Spanish security forces.
According to data collected by the Northern Human Rights Observatory, the mass movement continued late into the night of May 17, despite the curfew imposed due to the state of health emergency.
This is the first time that a phenomenon of this magnitude has been recorded in Sebta. Among the 3,000 people who were able to return to Sebta, at least 2,700 migrants are Moroccan, including 700 minors according to the government delegation in the city.
From the early hours of the day, the arrivals of migrants, from Moroccan beaches located a few kilometers south of Sebta, have multiplied in the territory, said a spokesperson for the prefecture of Ceuta. There were still only a hundred in the morning - young men as well as children and women - but as the hours passed, the tide did not stop.
In the early evening, the prefecture spokesman announced that a total of 2,700 people had crossed the border, confirming that this was an unprecedented figure.
Migrants arrived by sea, swimming, sometimes using inflatable buoys or rubber dinghies, and still others walked where the sea "had gone" or crossed the land border. Shortly after 8:00 p.m., arrivals appeared to have stopped, the spokesperson said.
Asked about their accommodation, he said that all these people were to be accommodated in sheds on El Tarajal beach, but that the authorities were meeting to assess the situation, which was unprecedented. Spain’s Interior Ministry said in a statement Monday evening the “immediate reinforcement of the civil guard and national police force in the area” with 200 additional agents.
For Mohamed Benaïssa, president of the Northern Observatory for Human Rights, this new wave of migration mainly concerns “minors, but also families, all of them Moroccans. It could be linked to the diplomatic crisis between Morocco and Spain ”.
Between the start of the year and May 15, 475 migrants arrived in Sebta, more than double the same period last year, according to Interior Ministry figures released a few days ago.
The occupied president of Sebta constitutes with Melilla the only land border between the African continent and the European Union, it is a crossing point for immigration from black Africa and the Maghreb.
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