Trampolín beach: The open‑air refuge in Ceuta for migrants resisting in search of asylum

No one looks at the sea on Trampolín beach. In the scant 140 meters of this small Ceuta cove, visitors and tourists no longer crowd the shore. For days it has been the open‑air refuge for migrants remaining in the city, whose horizon is not the Strait visible beyond the water. Nor is it the view uphill where the Temporary Immigrant Shelter (CETI) sits — there is no room left. That is why around 400 people, mostly men, spread out here across Trampolín’s rough sand to wait. Most do not really know what for.

Jon is from Nigeria. He is 23 and asks what time it is, if it is already afternoon. On Monday several NGOs came to hand out food and water, and he hopes they will return. While he waits, he checks from time to time whether the police have reopened the beach showers so he can refill his plastic bottle. He knows the water isn’t safe to drink, but says it hasn’t made him sick so far. He is from Anambara and swam across last Thursday. He is hungry, but begs people to share internet access so he can tell his mother he is okay. When he hangs up, he admits he lied a little. “It’s better that way,” he concludes and rejoins his group, which is playing a pick‑up game on the rockier part of the beach.

The police who guard the coastal promenade consider this one of the city’s “hot spots,” and not because of the 35ºC heat of an unrelenting August. Each day the number of migrants at the cove rises and shade becomes scarce. They shelter from the sun wrapped in Red Cross blankets or under makeshift structures of cardboard and cloth. Under one of the few straw umbrellas an entire family dozes — six brothers and a sister. They are from the Comoros, a small archipelago in the Indian Ocean and one of Africa’s poorest countries. “First we fled to Mayotte, and then we saved money to fly to Morocco,” explains the eldest brother, Saifi Hibbane. “I am 30 years old, I am a telecommunications engineer but I had no future there,” he says in French. His sister, Nissoite Hassane, is one of the few women on the beach. She covers her head with a pair of pants and doubles over, clutching her waist in pain. Another brother comforts her with strokes on the back and she shyly asks how to get sanitary pads. “Sanitary pad for periods,” she whispers. They had some money when they went into the sea last Thursday, but what they did not lose in the water has been spent on bread. “At least we all survived, and we’re together. The worst thing now is the cold at night,” says Saifi, who hopes to find blankets before the sun sets.

At the far end of the beach, beside Ceuta’s desalination plant, several television crews from around the world make live reports documenting the situation at Trampolín. The migrants wait quietly behind the reporters, like living green‑screen backgrounds; when the broadcasts end, they speak to the crews in various languages, pouring out their stories. Sometimes they cannot contain themselves and break into screams before the live feed ends, televising their despair unfiltered. Khaled holds his passport in his hand — still green, though stiffened and faded by seawater. He is from Yemen, and when asked how long ago he left he spreads his palm: “Five years,” he says in English. He rattles off, haltingly, the geography of his journey: he has passed through South Sudan, Sudan, Djibouti, Morocco, Algeria and Libya. From the latter he bears a scar on his abdomen that snakes near his navel and disappears beneath his salt‑stiffened shirt. He is 32 and shows in his passport photo how he looked before leaving Yemen with his brother. His brother died on Thursday, near the El Tarajal jetty. Khaled cannot recall when he lost sight of him while they were swimming, but he knows there is no point in looking for him now. He has asked the police and NGO workers, but no one can confirm his loss.

Many sub‑Saharan migrants repeat basic words in Spanish with accents from Nigeria to Ghana, but there is one word heard in every corner of the small Ceuta coastline: “Asilo,” one says. “Asilo, asilo, asilo,” the others chant. It is what they hope to obtain — the horizon they glimpsed when, almost a week earlier, they were told in WhatsApp groups that the border between Morocco and Spain “was open.” Some had tried to cross before, without success. Some admit regret, but most persist in their intention to apply for asylum from the Spanish authorities. They know they cannot be summarily returned to Morocco, and that the color of their skin meant they were not loaded into vans to be sent back, as happened with roughly 60,000 migrants, according to figures from the Spanish Interior Ministry. But they do not know how to translate any of that into a way off this beach, out of this heat, without water or food. They ask about the procedures and receive no answers, so they wait for them, confined to this strip of sand, paying little attention to the sea through which they arrived.

From time to time they split into pairs or trios and wander along the promenade, down Benítez road, toward a shop in search of food. They queue at the threshold of an open grocery store despite a half‑lowered shutter that seems to bar the way. The owner orders them in one by one, and to show their bills before touching any food. They display crumpled dirhams and silently point to packets of cookies, bananas, and loaves of bread. For the rest of Ceuta’s residents and visitors the shopping proceeds normally — people can enter in groups and pick up items themselves. The migrants pay and leave, sharing the food on the walk back to the beach.

The other beach that was a hot spot until two days ago is no longer so. El Tarajal, by the border, awakens to calm, with a reduced military presence. On the rocks of the jetty a trio of Moroccan minors get into the water and dive to the bottom. They are searching for remnants of the mass crossing that took place almost a week ago, which was also their route in. The traces of a crossing in which at least 114 people died. They mostly find clothes and check the pockets of the loot: pants, hoodies, T‑shirts, unmatched shoes. One of them emerges from the sea triumphant with a zip‑front sweater several sizes too large and puts it on, dripping. He disappears into the streets happy with his find.

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