Construction fences to close the streets and raids to scare away migrants who resist leaving Ceuta: “There are still some left”

Four men monitor access on a street in the Los Rosales neighborhood of Ceuta, where they have placed a yellow construction fence that closes off the passage. They set up their own border on Thursday, the same day that more than 60,000 people entered the city from Morocco, fearing that immigrants would enter their homes. Considering the proportion of those arriving and the population of the city, which is 83,000 inhabitants, it was feared that they would not be long in getting there, as happened.

On Saturday at noon, when the vast majority of those who had entered the city en masse through the ridge of the El Tarajal border post had returned to Morocco on their own, herded by the army, they maintained their security belt. Migrants were hardly seen in the center of the city, but there were still various groups of young people —“several thousand,” according to the Government of the autonomous city— strolling through residential neighborhoods, dozing in the shadows or trying to buy some water, tobacco or something to eat.

One of the neighbors of Los Rosales had placed a chair and joked that there, watching in the shade, they were “luxury”. With suspicion that they were being recorded, they pointed out the different points with more private fences.