Spain's Ceuta, a city in North Africa, is facing a migration crisis that has exposed deep divisions CEUTA, Spain -- Ceuta, a sliver of land in North Africa, is an anomaly for Spain: a city where Muslims and Christians live in almost equal numbers. But a monthslong migration crisis in the exclave, which Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will visit on Tuesday, has exposed religious and ethnic fault lines in a place that bills itself as a beacon of coexistence. Others say the divisions were always there.
The crisis was triggered when about 80,000 people poured into the Spanish exclave in late July from neighboring Morocco, driven by rumors online that Spain had opened its border. Most of those who crossed left within days, but up to 15,000 migrants stayed, leaving the city under strain and pitting residents against one another. Many migrants who remained in Ceuta have sheltered in Muslim neighborhoods, sleeping on streets, in doorways and makeshift tent camps and centers run by NGOs and locals.
Residents say the chaos never ended for them and have grown frustrated. That we feed all of Ceuta?” asked Mohamed Susi, a resident of El Principe, a Muslim-majority neighborhood, in early October. Hundreds of migrant boys had gathered at a church next to his house before a visiting minister's appearance.
Next to one of the city's main mosques, volunteers and workers at a Muslim charity filled plastic to-go containers with stewed lentils and pasta on a late September day. Halima Ahmed, spokesperson for the Luna Blanca charity, said it has distributed between 3,000 and 5,000 meals per day to migrants still in the city. The volunteers and workers have received threats and insults for doing so, she said.
People returned to restaurants, bars and open-air terraces. But signs of the city's discontent abound. Storefronts carry signs that read: “Ceuta stands its ground — Ceuta won't give up!” while the flags of Spain and Ceuta hang from balconies.
Spanish police and thousands of soldiers have been deployed, patrolling the city center and areas near the border. Residents have staged regular protests as the crisis persisted. At a demonstration outside the city government in early October, around 200 people demanded solutions from Spain's left-wing national government.
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