Chaos of border crossing gives way to limbo for Moroccans on Ceuta’s streets

Limbo on Ceuta’s Streets After Border Crossing Chaos

A Father’s Journey Back to Spain

Wanderstayfinder.com – Youssef El Abbas witnessed a remarkable opportunity unfold four days prior, one that promised to restore the life he had lost seven years before. Reports were spreading that roughly 400 individuals had made the swim from Morocco to Ceuta, the Spanish territory situated on North Africa’s coastline. This enclave sits approximately 12 miles, or 19 kilometers, across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain’s mainland. For the 44-year-old Moroccan man and father of four, this presented a chance to return to Spain after being deported when his residency permit expired following his job loss in Bilbao back in 2019.

El Abbas boarded a taxi bound for Tétouan, a city located south of the enclave. During his journey, he encountered Facebook updates and news stories indicating that Moroccan officials were permitting travelers to pass through their border side. This meant he could avoid the ordeal faced by those who crossed the night before. Instead of a long overland trek, he could travel briefly before swimming for merely five minutes from Moroccan to Spanish territory, thereby bypassing Spanish border controls.

Upon arriving in Tétouan, El Abbas discovered a city in complete disarray. “Young men were running through the streets, flooding every corner,” he recalled. By the time a second taxi carried him to Fnideq, the town directly bordering Ceuta, he observed that the typical blockades and checkpoints had been dismantled. These barriers had previously prevented people lacking European documents from approaching the frontier. “The Moroccan police were shouting at us: ‘Go, go, go! Run now, run into Spain,'” he explained. “The night before, they were beating people. But that morning they were letting us through. Nothing made sense.”

Chaos at the Border

Despite the overwhelming crowds, El Abbas noticed that police were selectively allowing only Moroccans to cross. “All the sub-Saharan migrants were being pushed back by force,” he observed. He reached the border at 2:45pm on Wednesday. By 3pm, following a brief swim, he found himself standing on Spanish soil. However, not everyone shared his fortune. “In just 10 minutes in the water, I saw four people floating dead in Moroccan waters,” he recounted. “People were pulling their bodies out.”

These deaths were among at least 72 individuals who perished from drowning or were crushed while attempting to reach Spanish territory. El Abbas represents just one of approximately 50,000 people who crossed into Ceuta during this week, an event that Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, characterized as “a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity.”

Political Context and Speculation

Madrid has attributed this sudden influx to “human-trafficking mafias” that exploited a recent decision by Spain’s supreme court. The court ruled that individuals intercepted at sea while attempting to enter Ceuta or Melilla—the other Spanish enclave on North Africa’s coast—could not be summarily returned under existing special rules. However, speculation has emerged suggesting that Moroccan authorities might have opened the border to express their dissatisfaction with Sánchez’s recent visit to Algeria, a country supporting efforts to liberate the disputed Western Sahara territory from Moroccan occupation.

Morocco’s ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich Millán, stated that Rabat was unhappy about the mass crossing and hoped those in Ceuta would return. Moroccan government sources informed the Europa Press news agency that the surge of people entering Ceuta resulted from “criminal organisations,” insisting that Rabat’s cooperation with Spain remained “exemplary.” This is not the first time Morocco has adjusted border policy for political reasons. In May 2021, Rabat loosened border controls during a diplomatic standoff triggered after Madrid permitted a Western Sahara independence leader to receive Covid-19 treatment in Spain, allowing 10,000 people to cross into Ceuta over two days.

Bittersweet Return

El Abbas said he had never ceased dreaming of returning to Spain, where he had primarily worked in the hospitality sector for 14 years. Since his deportation to Morocco in 2019, he has lived separated from his wife and four daughters, who continue residing in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao. He has managed to survive with occasional work repairing mobile phones alongside his father. “I never stopped thinking about coming back,” he said. “In Morocco, I was alive, but I wasn’t really living.”

The return has proven bittersweet. When he swam ashore in Ceuta, a Spanish Guardia Civil officer extended a hand to pull him from the sea. Yet that gesture of assistance eventually transformed into one of violence. Three days after arriving, the group of people he was with were surrounded by a military patrol and beaten. “The same hand that helped me out of the water was the one that later hit me,” he said.

Now El Abbas faces an uncertain future, caught between hope and the reality of being stranded in a territory that welcomed him but has not yet granted him full rights. The streets of Ceuta remain filled with thousands of others in similar limbo, waiting for answers from both Spanish and Moroccan authorities about what comes next.