The goal is to return the minors to Morocco. This is the main conclusion reached by the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, and the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, in the meeting they held this Wednesday at the Moncloa to address the situation, the day after the justice system ratified the suspension of the returns. The commitment of the Spanish government is that it will activate "resources and capacities" to achieve the assisted return to Morocco of the minors who crossed to Ceuta in the diplomatic crisis in May, and that the two administrations will try the procedure again, adapting to what the judge has required. The required procedures have not been followed, the justice has ruled.

The National Police has activated, this Friday early in the afternoon, an operation to return to Morocco about 800 minors from the country that entered Ceuta alone in mid-May. The operation has begun with the transfer, in groups of 15, of the 234 teenagers who were in the sports center of Santa Amelia, according to what police sources confirmed to Europa Press and the organization No Name Kitchen (Ceuta) to ARA. The repatriation operation will not include minors considered vulnerable, according to the same sources.

Good old Galileo Galilei kept the scientific revolution alive and extinguished its bonfire when, condemned by the Inquisition to abjure heliocentrism, he is to have whispered his memorable (and perhaps non-existent) quip: "And yet it moves!"

Although the Spanish government had insisted that there were no minors among the migrants returned immediately at the border of Morocco with Ceuta, the Public Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation following the complaint of the Fundació Arrels for the case of a 16-year-old boy who swam -helped by a float made of bottles- to the beach of the autonomous city and shortly after the police accompanied him to the border to expel him. Spanish law and international law prohibit the expulsion of minors because they are part of a group with special protection that cannot be left without guardianship and, for this reason, when they arrive in a country it is the public administrations that take charge of them while their family is not located. Although the proceedings are being opened as a result of a specific case, the Public Prosecutor's Office has clarified that if other expulsions can be documented, they will also be investigated.

On a street in the industrial estate next to the port of Ceuta, Ridan, 16, stops us and shows us his mobile phone with a cracked screen and, with gestures, makes us understand that it has no battery. "Mom", he says, pointing to the phone. We leave him ours to call home, after four days wandering lost in the streets of Ceuta without knowing what to do or where to go, and sleeping on the breakwater of the beach. His father answers instantly, and the conversation barely lasts five minutes. "Dad, I heard that the border was open and I've gone to Ceuta. You and mum don't have a job and we are many brothers and sisters and we couldn't do anything to get out of this crisis that affects so many people. Now I will try to go up to the Peninsula. If I had wanted to steal or commit a crime I would have stayed in Tetuan. I'm going to get the papers and help the whole family", he tells them. The father tells him to take care of himself, to be a man and not to mix with "bad company". The mother does not get on the phone, she can only be heard crying.

Melilla has experienced the fourth consecutive night of migratory pressure on its border perimeter, the first with the Spanish army deployed to reinforce surveillance and control, reports Efe. Unlike the last two nights, in which attempts to enter could be thwarted, this Thursday night part of those who have managed to approach the border perimeter at different points have been able to access the city. There is no official data on how many people have participated, but the Home Affairs Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has mentioned that around thirty have succeeded. Marlaska has assured that all of them will be "located" and "returned" to Morocco.

Spain is returning to Morocco people who have arrived in Ceuta without the procedure established by law, the Spanish Refugee Aid Commission (CEAR) denounced yesterday. There is not even official data on how many of the 5,600 people who have returned to Morocco have been forced by the police and how many have returned on their own.

"Morocco takes note, and with all the consequences". This was the response of the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the hospitalisation in Logroño of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali. A week later, more than 8,000 people (a third of them minors) crossed the border into Ceuta irregularly. This is not new. At the end of February 2020, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the EU that it would "pay the price" for not increasing its financial aid and not supporting Turkish military operations in northern Syria. Days later, following the announcement of an open border policy, 13,000 people (including many families) attempted to cross the Greek-Turkish border in the Evros River area.

Morocco said that the reception of Brahim Ghali in a Spanish health centre would have consequences and, indeed, days after the warning, police passivity allowed the entry of over 8,000 people to Ceuta's territory. But who is this man who has caused a diplomatic crisis that has put Pedro Sánchez's executive and the European Union on alert?

Every time Spain suffers a humanitarian and migratory crisis on the southern border, a new front opens up between the Spanish government and the opposition. Morocco knows it well and takes advantage of this weakness.  Despite the fact that Pablo Casado called Pedro Sánchez on Tuesday taking an interest in the crisis in Ceuta and giving his full support to "guarantee the territorial integrity" of the State, this consensus has been shattered this Wednesday during the control session in Parliament, in which the crisis with Morocco has come to monopolise the face to face between the Spanish government and the opposition and not the pandemic, as was usual, and even more so after the end of the state of alarm. Although the leader of the PP extended a hand to the Spanish president, he also called on him to rectify his foreign policy and accused him of fuelling the problems with Morocco. "This was the chronicle of a crisis foretold", he said. Sánchez has accused the head of the opposition of using any "calamity" to try to "overthrow the government of Spain". "Not only is he disloyal to the [Spanish] government, but he is disloyal to the general interest of the Spanish people", the president has replied.

Tense calm in Ceuta. The city wakes up with hundreds of people who have slept in the streets, attended by NGOs and the solidarity of the neighbours. After two days of arrival of 8,000 migrants -among them, many families with very young children-, the border is closed again and the Moroccan guards have resumed the controls they had stopped doing, which has triggered the most serious humanitarian and diplomatic crisis between the two countries in recent decades.

The arrival of 6,000 migrants on the coast of Ceuta in the face of the complete passivity of the Moroccan police has opened a new diplomatic crisis between two neighbours, Spain and Morocco, which maintain a complex relationship, with many pending issues: the disputed sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla, the agreements that allow the exploitation by Spanish fishing boats of the Moroccan coasts, the delimitation of territorial waters in the Canary Islands and the Spanish position in the Western Sahara conflict. Although none of the governments admits it publicly, this last issue is the trigger for the current serious crisis.

The irregular entry of 6,000 people into Spain through the Ceuta border in the last 24 hours has provoked a serious diplomatic crisis between Spain and Morocco, with calls for consultations with their respective ambassadors. By Tuesday evening, Spain, which has mobilised the army and sent police reinforcements, had already returned to Morocco almost half the migrants, most of them young (and many of them minors) who took advantage of the passivity of the Moroccan police to swim across the border. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska have travelled to Ceuta to follow the crisis on the ground.

Yesterday, Ceuta experienced an unprecedented entry of people swimming or walking along the two border breakwaters with Morocco. As reported by the government Delegation, about 5,000 Moroccans entered the city and the president of Ceuta has raised the figure above 6,000, in statements to the SER. Of this total, some 1,500 could be minors. Until now, the highest number of arrivals of migrants by sea in the State had been experienced in November, when in two days 2,188 people arrived at the Canary Islands. The situation led to the decision yesterday to mobilise the army to assist in controlling of the streets in Ceuta, with several units deployed. The Delegation of the Spanish government in the city calls for "calm".

After almost two days in which they have allowed almost 8,000 people to pass into Ceuta, the Moroccan authorities have once again taken action and prevented the passage of more people who were waiting in the border towns for their turn to cross the border. For the moment, police controls have been re-established in Castillejos and Beliones, while the reinforcement of soldiers, police and civil guards sent to the autonomous city will be maintained sine die, while waiting for the tension between the two countries to calm down. It has been an intense two days at the border, during which almost 8,000 people - single men but also entire families - have entered Ceuta irregularly in the face of the passivity of the Moroccan guards. The proof of the seriousness of the unprecedented crisis is that Pedro Sánchez has cancelled his agenda and travelled to Ceuta to give a message of "firmness" and stress that his government will react to "any challenge, any eventuality and under any circumstances", in an institutional appearance from the Moncloa, shortly after speaking with King Felipe and the president of the PP, Pablo Casado.