Spain moves closer to solving Ceuta's migration crisis — Bloomberg
Photo: Chaos in Ceuta is gradually subsiding (Getty Images)
Almost all of the migrants who illegally entered Ceuta last week have already been returned. Spanish authorities are now working with those who remain in the enclave, according to Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares.
The Spanish Foreign Minister publicly promises that his country will do everything possible to return every migrant to where they came from.
"The vast majority of those who entered have already returned to Morocco," Albares emphasizes.
Spanish authorities are trying to convince their European Union partners that the situation in Ceuta has been quickly brought under control.
According to official sources in Madrid, most of the approximately 50,000 undocumented migrants who arrived in the Spanish enclave late last week have already been sent back.
The massive influx of migrants caused chaos at one of the EU's two land borders with Africa. At the same time, Spain has been accused of having a more lenient immigration policy, which may have been one of the factors that prompted people to head to Ceuta.
Officials in Madrid and Rabat attribute the sharp increase in the number of migrants to a wave of misinformation surrounding the Spanish Supreme Court's July 8 ruling, which restricted the ability to immediately return people detained at sea.
Spanish authorities have also expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of support from other EU countries, emphasizing that they expect greater solidarity in such situations.
At the same time, Madrid insists that it responded promptly to the crisis and prevented it from spreading further.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen supported this position. In a letter to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, she noted that Spain and Morocco had dealt with the situation effectively and efficiently, successfully preventing further irregular migration to mainland Spain and other European countries.
This signals a shift in the European Commission’s rhetoric compared to the concerns it had expressed just a few days earlier.
Earlier, RBC-Ukraine reported on how the migrant breach in Ceuta had divided the EU and played into the Kremlin's hands.
Spain will build a barrier on the Ceuta border following the breach by tens of thousands of migrants.
