A Spanish police report mentioning a “significantly smaller deployment than usual” and the “permissiveness” of Moroccan police officers casts doubt on Rabat’s role in the Ceuta migration crisis at the end of July.
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This report, consulted on Wednesday, September 2, by Agence France-Presse (AFP), could embarrass the Spanish government, which has consistently exonerated Morocco of any responsibility for the sudden influx of tens of thousands of people into the small Spanish territory in North Africa on July 30 and 31—a position criticized by many members of the opposition.
Throughout the day, following the disclosure of elements of this report by the online news outlet El Español, the Ministry of the Interior repeatedly issued statements from senior police officials asserting that “no report has been issued attributing responsibility for the assault to any government, service, or individual, given that, to date, the mastermind behind the said assault remains unknown.”
Read also | Article for subscribers only. In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is trying to regain control of the Ceuta crisis.
“Beyond the official Throne Day celebrations in Rincón/M’Diq [organized on July 30], it is certain that the statements of a significant number of migrants who entered Ceuta on July 30 all agree that the police deployment around the border between Morocco and Ceuta (…) was considerably smaller than usual,” write investigators from the National Center for Immigration and Borders (CENIF) in this report.
“On July 30 and 31, the police response in Morocco to the mobilization and the massive influx of migrants into Ceuta was, at best, completely permissive, with no serious attempt recorded to reduce, disperse, or remove the mass of people from the border area on July 30,” they continue.
« The geographically close concentration of public security resources due to the celebration of Throne Day should have facilitated much firmer control, at least on July 31; on the contrary, we are seeing a gradual reaction that is slower than what a situation of this type required, » the police officers continued.
