For the past couple of days, I have commuted to work between Europe and Africa. When an estimated 60,000 migrants arrived in Ceuta, Spain’s autonomous outpost on the northern tip of Africa, from Morocco this week, businesses shut their doors and all available beds quickly disappeared.
So, we have been staying in the mainland Spanish port city of Algeciras, taking the one-hour ferry to and from Ceuta.
A fellow commuter is Isabel Hossein, a port police officer in Algeciras whose home is Ceuta. “I have documents, so it’s easy for me,” she says. “Sometimes I cross the border to Morocco just for lunch. Why not? The food is good.”
Isabel says the mass influx of migrants on Wednesday and Thursday was overwhelming for the residents of Ceuta. “People were afraid; there were so many young men everywhere,” she said.
“I am half Christian, half Muslim, as many in Ceuta are. We live peacefully together. But the numbers this time were scary.”
It has got me thinking about the journeys we take. At Algeciras, hundreds of cars line up daily for the ferry to Tangier. Moroccans from all over Spain, and elsewhere in Europe, depart here to go home for the summer holidays.
I am told that on motorways in Spain up to 1,000km away, the word “Algeciras” appears in Arabic to ensure people find their way here. They, of course, have documents.
In Ceuta, on Saturday, I saw hundreds of young men making their way back to Morocco on foot, under the watchful, occasionally threatening, eye of the Spanish military.
The undocumented ones
Exhausted by the heat, 48 hours earlier, the men swam to the shores of Ceuta.
“For the good life, humanity, safety, and all the things you need,” Abdelmajid said.
There was none of that available when they arrived in Ceuta, just extreme heat, thirst and a very hostile reception.
Of the estimated 60,000 Moroccans who arrived in little more than 24 hours, 90 percent had returned to Morocco by Saturday night.
Several indicated by rotating their wrists they would simply try again. “They were told to come. I saw it on Instagram, ‘Go to Spain and get money, jobs,’” she said. “It’s all a game.”
Dozens died in the attempt to reach Ceuta, and on Saturday evening, police divers were still recovering bodies from the surrounding waters.
The Spanish government blames criminal gangs and traffickers. Opposition politicians blame the left-wing Spanish government’s immigration policies for the weekend’s events, some describing it as “an invasion”.
Zia Yusuf, a senior figure in the anti-immigration Reform UK party, turned up in Ceuta to join those from the right and far right trying to set their narrative for the events.
A long way to come for a bit of social media, but this was powerful stuff: in a crisp white shirt and surrounded by muscled minders, I watched Yusuf extract a few words from young men who spoke little English.
On his X account, he told his nearly 150,000 followers: “I am in Ceuta, the scene of the 60,000 strong invasion. Spain has effectively militarised its border. Already spoken to Moroccan men here who say they are trying to get to Britain. More to come.”
No one I spoke to said they were heading for Britain. Though I’ve no doubt if you posed the question to someone with a passing idea of what you were asking – “Would you like to go to Britain?” – the answer would likely be, “yes”.
For some, it no doubt is a game. But here in Ceuta, amid the detritus of flippers and rubber floating devices that litter the beaches this weekend, a game with tragic consequences.
