Spain to put containment fence on Ceuta's border with Morocco after frontier rush that killed 67
The Hindu – International
thehindu.com
Summary
Subscribed with another email? Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez slammed the reaction of some other European Union leaders to the events in Ceuta, saying calls for Spain to be suspended from the EU's borderless Schengen zone were “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance, or political interest.” A handful of exhausted migrants who swam to Ceuta's urban Tarajal beach Saturday (August 1) morning were met by soldiers who escorted them back across the border. Questioned how this massive border breach could have happened given the heavy security on both sides of the border and whether Morocco posed a threat to Ceuta, Marlaska defended the government in Rabat. “The events require an evaluation by Spain and Morocco,” he said. Sanchez slammed the reaction of some EU nations who he said had “chosen to attack Spain and to call for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen Area.” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has threatened to suspend Italy's open-border Schengen agreement with Spain, and Italy was reimposing border controls for people arriving from Spain by air and sea. “In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction,” Mr. Hundreds of migrants who recently crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta streamed back across the border on Saturday(August 1), telling an Associated Press reporter they were returning “of their own free will” after what they described as degrading treatment on the Spanish side. Migrants walked along a long stretch of wave breakers before slipping into Morocco through a small breach in the border fence that had become an informal entry point. One, Othmane El Merzoug, stopped passersby to ask for a phone call so he could reach his family and ask them to send money for the journey back to his hometown, about 189 miles (305 kilometres) from the border. The road linking the Moroccan town of Fnideq to the border crossing bore the scars of the previous night's unrest. Police barriers channelled traffic toward the crossing, and water cannons remained stationed nearby. “Life in this city has been disrupted as a result of the border incident,” said Ceuta's President Juan Jesús Vivas. “The return of people has begun satisfactorily, but the process must be completed.” In the Moroccan city of Tangier, about 75 kilometres (46 miles) west of Ceuta, the main railway station was busy with people returning from Ceuta or the border. I stayed near the border with Ceuta for two days, but I couldn't find anything to eat,” said Abdalah, an aspiring migrant who asked that his last name not be published out of fear of retaliation for trying to cross illegally.
From the source
“We are relentless against those who break the law,” Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told journalists in Ceuta
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Published by The Hindu – International on thehindu.com
