Thousands of people return to Morocco after crossing the border with Ceuta

Thousands of migrants who had irregularly entered Ceuta over the past 24 hours began returning to Morocco on Friday by the same point they used to get in, the border breakwater that separates the autonomous city from the North African country. The migrants are being guided by military personnel to show them the routes to return.

The number of young people returning to Morocco is substantial and growing by the hour. They are going back into the water or crossing by land because they say there are too many people in the city, they cannot find places to sleep, shops and bars are refusing to serve them, and they cannot find food. Some have reported mistreatment by residents of certain neighborhoods who have thrown stones at them and threatened them with guns.

The breakwater that marks the border between Spain and Morocco in Ceuta has become a crossing used both by those entering and those leaving — in other words, by people arriving in Spain and by those returning to Morocco. Down in the water early Friday, people were still attempting to swim to the exclave with flotation devices. For now, the Spanish army and Civil Guard officers are limited to controlling or directing the flow of people.

A 21-year-old Moroccan nurse, Salma Zoubiri, says she’s turning back, that things are going badly with the police, and that she came this far because she has family in Ceuta. And she doesn’t mind going back out to sea with her float — she likes to swim, she says in broken English. At the border, which is open to people crossing legally — both entering and leaving — about 30 military vehicles are stationed.

Ceuta awoke on Friday to thousands of young people huddled on the damp grass in parks, sleeping with little clothing, children at the entrances to public parking lots, and some youngsters shivering on top of statue pedestals. The city has turned into an improvised dormitory.

The promenades along the beach are full of young people. They wander aimlessly carrying plastic bags. High-mobility Spanish army tactical vehicles move slowly along the road. The climb up to the Príncipe neighborhood is packed with shirtless young people and litter scattered across the street like the aftermath of a summer festival. The army deployment gives the city a wartime appearance.

Around 40,000 people have entered the city in the last 24 hours. Thousands arrived in the early hours of Friday. Nineteen people have died, according to provisional figures, while trying to swim around the breakwater that separates the two countries. This toll far exceeds that recorded in the previous migration crisis in the autonomous city, in May 2021, when it was estimated that over 10,000 migrants breached border controls. The number of entries now being reported — which some sources put at nearly 50,000 — would effectively increase the exclave’s population by about 50%.

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