The death toll in the latest border crisis in Ceuta has risen to 67, the Spanish government said Saturday, including people who drowned and others who were killed in a stampede while attempting to cross a breakwater barrier.
Spain said it was installing a 500-meter-long containment barrier along the breakwater and extending into the sea after an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 migrants breached the tiny Spanish territory’s border between Thursday and Friday.
On Saturday morning, a small number of exhausted migrants who had swum to Ceuta’s urban Tarajal beach were met by soldiers and escorted back across the border.
Spain’s Interior Ministry said the majority of those who entered the North African territory had already been returned to Morocco.
After days of chaos, with streets packed with people hoping for a better life, residents of Ceuta woke Saturday to an uneasy calm.
Security concerns, however, continued to weigh on the autonomous city of around 84,000 people.
“Life in this city has been disrupted as a result of the border incident,” Ceuta President Juan Jesús Vivas said.
“The return of people has begun satisfactorily, but the process must be completed,” he added. “The city has not yet returned to normal.”
Meanwhile, at Tangier’s main railway station, migrants who had returned from Ceuta, as well as those who had hoped to reach the European Union, slept exhausted on the ground as passersby watched from a distance.
“I tried to cross, but I failed. I stayed near the border with Ceuta for two days, but I couldn’t find anything to eat,” said Abdalah, an aspiring migrant who asked that his last name not be published for fear of retaliation over his attempt to cross illegally.
On the road leading to the Moroccan town of Fnideq, which borders Ceuta, many migrants were seen walking toward the frontier fence, some barefoot and apparently hoping to make another attempt to cross.
Taxi drivers and bus operators refused to transport them, fearing retaliation from authorities. Police officers were deployed along the road, stopping and checking vehicles heading toward Fnideq.
But some migrants who had reached Ceuta remained determined to stay.
Among them was Mohamed Hatri, a 23-year-old Moroccan.
“They’ve closed everything down so that we can’t buy anything to eat, to force us to return to our country,” he said.
“But even if they close it down … we’re going to stay here, whether we’re hungry or not.”
