ARCHIVED - Spain gives Morocco €30M to tackle illegal immigration after 8,000 break Cueta borders

The Spanish Government has approved €30 million aid to Morocco to pay for police deployment in the fight against illegal immigration.

The move comes after nearly 8,000 sea-soaked irregular migrants managed to rush the Cueta border between early Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon, (May 17 and 18), including around 2,000 minors.

According to Spain's Interior Ministry, at least 4,000 have been returned to Morocco, after the two countries signed an agreement 30 years ago to expel all those who swam across the border to reach Spanish territory.

In unprecedented scenes in Spain, shocking footage showed thousands of migrants running through the entry point to Cueta - one of two autonomous Spanish territories lying on the African coast which shares a 6.4km long border with Morocco, from which it is physically confined by a border fence.

While in other images huge crowds can be seen running through the city fleeing from police.

The number of irregular migrants managing to breach the borders slowed on Tuesday after Spain deployed an additional 200 police officers and several military units, but the arrivals didn’t stop even when anti-riot police on the Moroccan side dispersed crowds of people hoping to cross over.

He hablado con Juan Jesús Vivas para trasladarle el apoyo de Andalucía a Ceuta. Compartimos la inquietud de un pueblo hermano. El Gobierno de España tiene que habilitar los recursos necesarios para resolver la situación. Es un asunto de Estado. Unidad.https://t.co/fNmQPk4I4P

— Juanma Moreno (@JuanMa_Moreno) May 18, 2021

To try to bolster the effectiveness of police in Morocco in the fight against illegal immigration, Spain's Interior Minister, Fernando Grande Marlaska, said today, Wednesday, May 19, the government will grant the country €30 million aid.

"The granting of international police cooperation aid has been authorised to contribute to the financing of the deployment of the Moroccan authorities in activities to combat irregular immigration, migrant smuggling and human trafficking," said the Grande Marlaska in a statement.

He added that Ministry of the Interior aid "is not only for cooperation with Morocco, but also for all countries of origin and transit with which Spain has joint investigation teams".

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited Cueta and Melilla yesterday, together with the Minister of the Interior, to learn first-hand about the migratory pressure that the city is experiencing as part of a displacement to the autonomous cities.

"All Spaniards, anywhere in the country, should know that their security and tranquility will be defended by the Government of Spain at all times and in the face of any challenge with all necessary means," he told Melilla President, Eduardo de Castro.

The PM was booed by angry Ceuta residents, claiming that Spain is not doing enough to protect them from the constant pressure of illegal migration.

Relations between Spain and Morocco are strained at the moment, with the latter angry that the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali - who has been fighting for the independence of Western Sahara for decades - is receiving medical care at a Spanish hospital.

Morocco has accused Spain of admitting him under a false name, and not telling revelaing this information to Moroccan authorities.

And tensions run high over the Cueta territory, with the Moroccan government having made repeated calls for it to be transferred to Moroccan sovereignty.

However the Spanish government maintains that Ceuta has been a Spanish territory since the 16th century.

Irregular migrants attempting to enter Spain via the Ceuta border has been a contentious issue for many years and there are frequent attempts to scale the border fence, which is continuously reinforced, or swim around the border fence  where it meets the sea.

Under European migration laws, the Spanish government can only repatriate migrants if it can prove their country of origin, a task which is made as difficult as possible by the migrants who wish to enter Europe, with Spain as a gateway, and normally carry no ID, making repatriation very difficult for the Spanish authorities.

But even at the height of migratory pressure in Spain, illegal entries on the scale of the last two days have never been seen before.

The number of irregular migrants reaching Spanish territory far exceeds the 2,200 who made it to the shores of the Canary Islands on November 7 and 8 in 2020.

On Wednesday morning the Moroccan authorities closed the border crossing between the two countries completely and Moroccan police could be seen more actively pushing back migrants attempting to enter Ceuta by sea; their attitude in the preceding two days has been described as "passive".

IMAGE: Moncloa/Wikimedia/Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Defence