Ceuta: Videos confirm Spanish military attacks on Moroccan migrants
New videos confirm the attacks of members of the Spanish army on Moroccan migrants in Ceuta, while blaming Spain's bureaucracy for not returning the remaining migrants to Morocco.
On Friday, Spanish media circulated new videos confirming what Moroccan migrants in the city of Ceuta have been recounting for weeks of physical attacks on them by members of the Spanish army deployed in the city since the outbreak of the migration crisis in late July. One of the clips showed two Spanish soldiers chasing a young migrant on a road near the neighborhood of "El Príncipe", before he threw him to the ground and beat him with a baton while lying on the ground, according to what was quoted by the website "Telquel". Repeated testimonies from weeks ago and according to testimonies collected by the site On the ground, attacks by Moroccan migrants in Ceuta, including beatings with batons and the use of tear gas, are no longer isolated cases, but have been repeated since the outbreak of the migration crisis about two months ago, when large numbers of Moroccan migrants tried to cross towards the city. The crisis has led to the transfer of thousands of migrants to temporary shelters amid rising tension, while local authorities in Ceuta proposed, on Friday, to open a new reception camp near the prison to accommodate the arrivals. Bourita: Responsibility for Spain These videos come at a time of escalating diplomatic dispute between Rabat and Madrid over the immigration file, as Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita confirmed, on Friday, that the responsibility for any Moroccan migrants who have not been returned to their country lies exclusively with Spain, after the Spanish authorities acknowledged that the identification processes of migrants are still faltering. This position comes days after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that Morocco's monitoring of its borders had "failed", at a time when the Minister of the Interior The Spaniard acknowledged that “violence is not a solution” in Ceuta. These video facts put the Spanish authorities under increasing pressure to investigate the actions of their security elements, at a time when the Moroccan public is awaiting the developments of a crisis that lasted for more than two months and left large numbers of Moroccan migrants stranded between the two banks, amid calls to clarify the fate of the files of those who have not yet been returned to Morocco.