Four Moroccan migrants in Spain’s enclave of Ceuta were arrested Saturday for throwing stones at a patrol of Spanish soldiers, one of whom fell and injured himself while pursuing the assailants, a police spokesman told AFP.
It was the second such incident to occur in recent days in the tiny territory located in North Africa, following the arrests on Thursday of 12 Moroccan migrants who threw stones at a Spanish military vehicle, injuring one of its four occupants.
Eleven of those 12 were deported to Morocco, according to local reports.
Ceuta remans a source of tension, politically and security-wise, for Spain since tens of thousands of migrants crossed over into it from Morocco on July 30 and 31, triggering alarm among Madrid’s EU partners.
Most of those migrants left in subsequent days, but thousands remain in Ceuta, wandering the streets and sleeping on beaches of the territory whose population is 80,000.
Ceuta residents protesting against the presence of the remaining migrants clashed with police on Thursday, prompting Spain’s government to appeal for calm.
Madrid is seeking ways to reduce the number of remaining migrants in Ceuta without breaching EU and international asylum and migration laws.
The EU’s commissioner for migration, Magnus Brunner, said on X on Saturday that Spain had asked for help from the European Union’s border control agency Frontex, the police cooperation agency Europol and the EU Agency for Asylum.
“We are already working on the request and will take a swift decision,” Brunner said, calling the situation in Ceuta “challenging”.
“The priority remains to ensure the swift return of all those who remain illegally in Ceuta,” he said.
