Sometimes the evidence of our own eyes and ears is so dreadful we don’t want to believe it. Anyone who is not paying attention to what is happening in Ceuta needs to wake up fast.
As everyone knows ,almost 4 weeks ago, tens of thousands of migrants swarmed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, apparently motivated by the pro-migration ruling from the Spanish Supreme Court and the soft touch policies of the ruling Socialist Workers Party.
Although some Irish and British media platforms at first said just hundreds, and then maybe thousands, of illegal migrants had broken through into Spanish territory, local police soon confirmed that the number of arrivals was likely in excess of 70,000 people, with local reports noting that they were mostly young men, though some women and children also came.
While the Spanish authorities were adamant that the illegal migrants were sent home as soon as possible, it was quickly evident that wasn’t the case as thousands refused to leave and set up camp on beach and overwhelmed services including the local hospital and emergency provisions.
As reported by Pat Coyne on Gript yesterday morning, Ceuta is on edge as thousands of residents converged on the city centre, angry at Madrid over a migrant crisis they say has pushed their home – which is a territory of just 18 square kms – to breaking point. “The tension in the city of Ceuta is very high” because there is “no response” from the government and “we feel abandoned,” Kissy Chandiramani, the autonomous city’s finance councillor, told news radio SER Thursday.
Some Ceuta residents have told Spanish media they are afraid to walk alone on the streets or do not let their children leave their homes, the local.es reported. In the early hours of Thursday morning, a military vehicle carrying four soldiers was attacked by up to 70 of the migrants from Morocco, adding to heightened tensions which spilt over again last night.
But one video of a live interview with migrants in Ceuta and a journalist with Spanish current affairs programme En Boca de Todos on the Cuatro channel has captured widespread attention, and with good cause. The message relayed is quite terrifying.
At first, I though the translation couldn’t be correct, so I asked a Spanish friend to translate. There was no mistake, he said.
David Alemán, host of the ‘Cuatro’ show filling in for Nacho Abad, asked through the journalist on the ground the opinion of a migrant on the minors who claimed to have been sexually abused.
“I think it’s wrong because there are parents who shouldn’t let go of [leave alone] their daughters. A man can risk his life, he can have a hard time, sleep on the street, without eating, without drinking water, but parents shouldn’t let go of an underage girl,” was the migrant’s response.
“The fault lies with their parents. Their parents had to be responsible for their daughters. You cannot have a 15 or 16-year-old daughter, let her loose, and have her enter Ceuta alone. It is normal that she is going to be raped,” he added.
“There are so many people here that they are not going to tell the good from the bad. The ones responsible for the girls are their parents, who are over there.”
“It is normal that she is going to be raped,”. It is one of those statements that are so dreadful that no comment is really required. There is a stark and horrifying warning in what was relayed.
The man is obviously not saying what he would do: he is relaying the reality of what it means to be a female child or young girl without someone to immediately protect you when you have crossed a border with thousands of strangers from Morocco. The expression on the face of the journalist likely mirrors the reaction of millions of viewers.
According to El Mundo “reports of rape in Ceuta have increased tenfold since the crossing, with 16 rapes and the migrants themselves the victims.”
“The courts are now receiving around 200 complaints per day, instead of the usual 20, including 16 cases of sexual assault, and several migrants have already been arrested or returned to Morocco for these crimes. Police officers are complaining about the precarious conditions under which they work,” the paper says.
A 900% increase. That’s what the courts in Ceuta are registering in terms of reported crimes since the illegal entry of 80,000 North Africans and sub-Saharan Africans on July 30 and 31. According to information obtained by EL MUNDO, complaints filed with the courts have multiplied tenfold following the Great Leap, and with around 10,000 migrants living in squalid conditions on the streets of the autonomous city, in absolutely unsanitary circumstances, the government has been forced to activate the National Security Law after nearly a month of denying the need for a unified command to address the extreme situation and use all state resources to tackle it.
And it reported that “one of the victims of these sexual assaults was a 15-year-old migrant girl who reported a gang rape. The perpetrators have not yet been identified, as this newspaper has learned. According to police officials who spoke to this newspaper, the number of sexual assaults increased rapidly. By August 7, six sexual assaults had already been reported, with several minors receiving medical attention.”
By August 18, 11 Moroccan minors had already reported sexual assaults. And on the 21st, the police arrested a Moroccan man accused of sexually assaulting a 22-year-old woman—it is not known whether she is Spanish or North African—on Calamocarro beach in Ceuta, where Vivas had offered the central government land that ultimately went unused, according to the Royal Decree approved this Tuesday, a draft of which EL MUNDO has obtained.
But the Spanish authorities are also saying that many assaults may not be reported – and reports indicate that girls are already being offered passage to mainland Europe by traffickers. Whether this becomes “normal” depends on what we learn from the events in Ceuta.