Tensions Simmer in Ceuta as Residents Protest Migrant Presence

Ceuta experienced renewed protests on Friday, with residents expressing their frustration over the presence of migrants. Chants of "invaders, expulsion" echoed through the city, a day after groups of citizens attempted to prevent the distribution of food and water to migrants camped on El Trampolín beach and destroyed an improvised settlement nearby.

Despite calls for calm from the central government and local authorities, the atmosphere remained tense. While the scenes of violence from Thursday did not immediately repeat, firecrackers startled demonstrators during one march. The protests, which began with about a hundred people gathering in front of the Government Delegation, grew as participants marched through the city, adding supporters along the way.

“

Yesterday no settlement was razed, three umbrellas were burned. What happens is that we are indignant.

Demonstrators, carrying Spanish and Ceuta flags and wearing local football club shirts, demanded the expulsion of migrants who arrived en masse from Morocco nearly a month prior. The protest march lasted nearly three hours. Some participants had traveled from Valencia and Granada specifically to join the demonstration.

Police, including riot units, accompanied the march, which numbered around five hundred participants by the time it passed a supermarket on Avenida de España. A significant number of migrants observed the protest from a nearby breakwater, while nine police officers were stationed on the beach to prevent access to the area where a migrant shelter had been burned the previous day. One protester claimed that only three umbrellas were burned, not an entire settlement, emphasizing the residents' indignation over being unable to access certain areas.

“

The neighbors cannot pass here and they are left chanting and shouting 'get out of here' or 'illegals, out'.