MADRID: More than 150 migrants forced their way into Spain’s overseas territory of Ceuta on Friday, hours after 540 people alighted in Greece as pressure on southern European states continues despite an overall drop in arrivals.
The mass arrivals come after several charity ships that rescued migrants off the coast of Libya were denied access to Italian ports by outgoing hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini.
On Friday, another such vessel belonging to charity Mediterranea Saving Humans warned of an
impending health emergency
on board as it was stuck at sea
after being banned from entering Italian waters.
According to the latest data from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), more than 46,500 people had crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year to August 28 and another 909 died in the attempt.
This marks a drop from the same period last year when over 68,000 people crossed and 1,562 died.
But southern European nations still bear the brunt of these arrivals.
On Thursday, Spain’s acting deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo said Europe should step in more.
“The countries that don’t have maritime borders also need to assume shared responsibility,” she told
lawmakers.
In Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta early on Friday, taking advantage of misty weather, 155 migrants stormed the barbed wire border that separates it from Morocco. Some of them clambered over while others broke through a door in the fence.
“They are all from sub-Saharan Africa, the majority from Guinea,” a spokesman for the central
government’s office in Ceuta told AFP.
Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish enclave, represent the European Union’s only lander
borders with Africa.
All in all, though, the number of migrants arriving in both cities this year has dropped to just over 18 percent to 3,427 compared with 2018, according to the latest interior ministry figures.
This is the first time in a year that migrants have managed to storm the barbed wire fence in Ceuta as a group, the spokesman said.
Once on Spanish territory, they are usually taken to a migrant reception centre where they can ask for asylum.
But Madrid has been known to send migrants back to Morocco. In August last year, Spain sent back 116 migrants who had forced their way into Ceuta in a mass expulsion condemned by human rights activists.
It is as yet unclear what will happen in this case. – AFP
