Exasperation of the neighbors, but without outbreaks of violence like those experienced in Ceuta on the afternoon and night of Thursday. One day after groups of citizens tried to prevent the distribution of food and water to migrants camped on El Trampolín beach and destroyed and burned an improvised settlement on a nearby sandy area, the same slogans were heard in the autonomous city this Friday. After calls for calm and social peace made by the central government and Juan Jesús Vivas’s team, the same scenes were not repeated, at least until late at night, although some firecrackers startled a demonstration.
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The tension, in any case, had not yet dissipated. In the afternoon, about a hundred people gathered in front of the Ceuta Government Delegation carrying carnations and chanting “Ceuta united will never be defeated” several times. Among the demonstrators, who carried flags of Spain and Ceuta, as well as local football team shirts, there were people of all ages, including children. After spending a few minutes in the square, they began a tour of the city, blowing whistles and shielding themselves from the last rays of sun with fans. There was a father and son who traveled from Valencia to support the people of Ceuta and a couple in their sixties from Granada who also traveled specifically to demonstrate.
The group continued touring the city demanding the expulsion of the immigrants who entered in the massive avalanche of July 30 and 31. The protest of the Ceuta population, fed up with the presence of thousands of people who crossed from Morocco almost a month ago, marched for almost three hours through the streets, adding participants as it progressed. The demonstrators demanded the departure of the migrants shouting “invaders, expulsion.”
In front of a supermarket located on Avenida de España, they stopped to cheer the soldiers guarding the entrance with the shout “you are not alone.” They continued chanting slogans like “Ceuta is Spain” to resume “invaders, expulsion.” More than fifteen agents from the National Police Intervention Units (UIP) accompanied the demonstration at the front. According to police sources, around half a thousand participants had already joined by the time they reached the supermarket.
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A large group of migrants watched the demonstration from a jetty near the beach where the day before one of the migrants’ tents was burned. Nine police officers were positioned on the beach preventing access to the area. “Yesterday no settlement was destroyed, three umbrellas were burned. What happens is that we are outraged,” one of the demonstrators claims. The neighbors cannot pass beyond here and remain chanting and shouting “get out of here” or “illegals, out.”
The reason for the blockade was to prevent groups of Ceutans from interrupting the distribution of aid by the Red Cross. The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, precisely made a “call” from her appearance in Congress to let volunteers work with “guarantees.”
The Coordinator of Development Organizations and Amnesty International expressed on Thursday their “deep concern” about the “violent drift” and the “growing climate of violence and tension in the streets” in Ceuta. Amnesty requested that the Red Cross personnel deployed in Ceuta be able to carry out their work “under safe conditions” and “without fear,” after verifying that they are suffering “threats” and seeing their work distributing water and food “obstructed.” According to the government, the scope of the emergency humanitarian response activated together with the Spanish Red Cross since August 3 began with the delivery of 2,500 daily kits on El Trampolín beach and other points in the city and “was progressively expanded as the detected needs increased.” According to the data provided, as of August 27, 93,650 food kits, 1,396 female hygiene kits, and 2,150 male hygiene kits have been distributed.
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