CEUTA, Spain: Cheering crowds waving Spanish flags filled Ceuta on Tuesday as King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia made a diplomatically sensitive visit to the city following July’s migrant influx from Morocco.
Their trip is the first royal visit since 2007, when a diplomatic crisis erupted with neighboring Morocco, which claims sovereignty over Ceuta and Spain’s other North African territory of Melilla.
More than 70,000 migrants streamed into the small city of around 80,000 inhabitants in an unprecedented surge on July 30-31. Scores died.
Most returned to Morocco in the following hours, but thousands have remained for weeks in often dire conditions, sleeping rough in the streets or on the beach.
The crisis has angered locals and damaged Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez before a November 29 general election in which migration will feature prominently.
Felipe and Letizia greeted the well-wishers who thronged the streets, stopping to shake hands and exchange words with them en route to the city hall to meet local authorities.
People raised their phones to take pictures of the royal couple, while some wore T-shirts bearing the slogan “Ceuta is not for sale. Ceuta must be defended.”
Cristina Carrasco, a 50-year-old civil servant who waited all morning to see the royals, told AFP “it was a pleasure and a source of pride” to have shaken hands with Felipe.
“We all told him, ‘don’t forget us,’ and he said, ‘no, we won’t forget you,’” recounted Carrasco, who felt “grateful and proud” about a visit that “we deserved.”
Retiree Silvia Salmeron, 71, said the visit “was a breath of fresh air. I got goosebumps.”
‘Pressure cooker’
At the city hall, Ceuta’s leader Juan Jesus Vivas thanked Felipe and Letizia for coming in “the most difficult moment of our recent history.”
Ceuta is “a pressure cooker that could explode at any time,” he said.
The authorities have set up thousands of places in temporary shelters and cleared the main camps on the beaches, but some migrants continue to live on the surrounding hills and the streets.
Ana Maria Diaz, a 69-year-old pensioner, said the king should have come earlier to see the makeshift migrant encampments and visit the outlying areas of Ceuta where they concentrate.
“You don’t see it here but if you go to the outlying neighborhoods... it’s terrible,” Diaz, who was holding a Spanish flag, told AFP.
The government insists it must respect international law by assessing whether the migrants are entitled to asylum, while hundreds of unaccompanied children cannot be summarily deported.
The royals will visit a cemetery where they will pay tribute to the migrants who died — most by drowning as they tried to swim around a border barrier.
Felipe is also due to make a speech during a meeting with members of Ceuta’s civil society before the monarchs travel to Melilla on Wednesday.
Diplomatic risks
The visit comes at a particularly sensitive time for Spain’s historically delicate relations with Morocco, as rumors swirl over the potential role Rabat may have played in the July rush.
The Spanish right has accused Morocco of orchestrating it for political motives, which Rabat and Sanchez have denied.
Moroccan King Mohammed VI broke his silence on Friday, condemning “the irresponsible statements made by certain political and media circles and their blatant instrumentalization of the situation,” in apparent reference to Spanish criticism.
On Monday, newspaper El Pais reported that Moroccan warships repeatedly entered Ceuta’s waters during and after the rush in a rare violation of Spanish sovereignty.
Spanish government spokeswoman Elma Saiz confirmed but played down the report on Tuesday, speaking of “a one-off incident that was resolved in a completely normal manner.”