Thousands protest in Spain as Ceuta’s migration crisis festers a month on

Thousands of protesters have rallied across Spain against the ongoing migrant crisis in Ceuta, a small Spanish territory on the African coast. Roughly 50,000 people gathered in Madrid alone on Wednesday. In Ceuta itself, residents draped Spanish and city flags over their shoulders. “Expel the invaders” and “Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta must be defended” were among the crowd’s chants. The protests fell on Ceuta Day, a local holiday that marks the Portuguese takeover of the North African city in the 15th century. They also come a little more than a month after more than 70,000 migrants and asylum seekers crossed en masse from Morocco into Ceuta on July 30 and 31. He swam to Ceuta with his wife and two young daughters, searching for better prospects. “There is no work in Morocco,” he told the news agency AFP. “I want to build a future in my life.” Some migrants and asylum seekers sleep on Ceuta’s beaches. Residents in Ceuta have also clashed with police and burned items belonging to migrants and asylum seekers, in protest of the influx of people. “The situation has been chaotic, so much so that you can’t go out onto the street,” said Gema Guillen, a protester. Meanwhile, Spain’s territorial policy minister, Angel Victor Torres, has accused the conservative and far-right opposition of exploiting the crisis “to attack the government of Spain” instead of helping the city. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has blamed the surge on a misread court ruling and online disinformation that he said encouraged people to cross the border. Amid the standoff, while some migrants are looking for economic opportunities, others are seeking asylum to escape alleged persecution back home. “They are people in a vulnerable situation; we need to have a little bit of empathy,” said Halima Ahmed of Luna Blanca, a nongovernmental organisation that distributes food and aid to migrants and asylum seekers. “People are tired, people are fed up… but that does not justify any type of violence,” she added.