Anyone driving through the streets of Ceuta immediately notices that the crisis is not over yet. There is no beach or alley where the consequences of the storming of the Spanish exclave at the end of last month are not visible. Young migrants are walking around everywhere, a large part of them sleeping on the streets. The relocation of 500 vulnerable children to the mainland currently seems mostly like putting a band-aid on the problem.
This week, new reception centers have been set up in Ceuta, providing shelter to more people. However, even in those centers there is not enough space for everyone. It is clear that both the local government and the government in Madrid do not have the situation under control, which makes the situation especially dangerous for girls.
Sexual violence
That is why local residents are committed to helping especially vulnerable migrants such as young girls and women. Ahmed Enfed-dal is chairman of one of the neighborhood associations in Ceuta. "There were rumors about sexual violence on the streets and we decided to help the women," he says.
With volunteers, he transformed a small square with a fence around it into a shelter. More than a hundred people can sleep there under sheets that serve as tents. There is clothing that has been collected and during the day they receive a meal. When it gets dark, the boys from the neighborhood keep watch.
Under water
Khouloud is one of the girls currently staying there. She is 17 and swam to Ceuta at night. "It was dark and people were pushing and pulling in the water. They even tried to push me under water," she says. When she arrived in Ceuta, she hid with her nieces in a forest. They were afraid the police would send them back to Morocco.
Eventually, their hiding place became too dangerous. "Outside there were boys who wanted to rape us," she says. She knows girls who, after sexual abuse, returned to Morocco, too afraid to stay in Ceuta. She herself is determined to stay, because for her this is the first step towards a new future. In Morocco, she earned about 5 euros a day and she hopes to be able to work for more in Spain. Her dream is eventually to open her own pastry shop.
Political discussions
Whether Khouloud will soon go to Europe, she does not know. She is not one of the children being taken to the mainland. Who is on that list and why they were chosen has not been disclosed. According to a representative of the municipality of Ceuta, this decision by the national government came out of the blue.
"I had to hear it from the press," says Kissy Chandiramani, representative of the municipality, to NOS. "We were not officially informed," she states. According to the ministry responsible, the mayor of the exclave was informed. Such political discussions between Madrid and Ceuta have meanwhile become daily practice and seem to be getting more out of hand by the day.
Meanwhile, it is still unclear when the group of 500 vulnerable migrants will depart for the mainland. It is a decision that receives a lot of political attention but seems like a drop in the ocean as a solution. Ceuta is said to have registered just over 2,000 minors, but in reality that number is probably much higher.
Tired
For Ahmed Enfed-dal and other local residents, this crisis has lasted far too long. "We are very tired, not only me but also the volunteers and local residents. There will come a moment when people are too tired to offer any more help," he says. More than 80,000 people live in Ceuta and according to estimates there are now at least 10,000 migrants.
"Imagine if in the metropolitan area of Madrid, where about 7 million people live, suddenly 700,000 people arrive. And that they wander through the city without a place to go," says Chandiramani. According to her, the city would then completely come to a standstill. The municipality is clearly at its wit's end. Short-term solutions are already difficult to find, let alone solutions for the long term.