Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has reaffirmed his country’s position on the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, stating that "the two cities are Spanish, period."
Spain has just removed health checks at the border posts of Ceuta and Melilla for travelers from non-European Union countries, including Morocco.
The use of jet skis by migrants to illegally enter Spain from the Moroccan coasts has increased in recent months. The country’s security forces are having difficulty detecting these craft on radar and thus arresting these migrants and human traffickers who transport them.
The Spanish Minister of Labor, Yolanda Diaz, presented on Tuesday in the Council of Ministers a bill to grant an unemployment benefit to border workers in Ceuta and Melilla.
Spain fears a massive assault of migrants in Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco, a few weeks before the high-level meeting between the two countries announced for November.
The Spanish Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has reaffirmed that Ceuta and Melilla "are cities as Spanish" as Bilbao, Madrid, Granada or any other city on the peninsula and the islands.
Former Spanish minister María Antonia Trujillo has reiterated her position on Ceuta and Melilla, and stated that "freedom of expression and information is more protected in Morocco than in Spain".
The Moroccan border police have stopped requiring stamps on passports from travelers to and from Ceuta. A measure welcomed by the association of residents of the autonomous city.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, clarified his country’s position on the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, stating on Thursday before Congress that these two territories definitively belong to Spain.
In a letter addressed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Morocco reiterates its claims on Ceuta and Melilla.
The military Driss Amar Mohamed, 39, was coldly shot dead on Monday in the El Principe neighborhood of Ceuta. Three hooded men, drug traffickers, shot him while he was in his brother’s car, parked in a garage, before fleeing.
Several National Police officers in Sebta were attacked by stone throwing on the night of Friday to Saturday, as they were conducting an operation in the Principe Alfonso neighborhood. They were taken to the city’s university hospital for treatment.