Moroccan Workers Stranded in Spanish Enclave Ceuta for 18 Months, Plead for Border Reopening

Blocked in Ceuta for a year and a half, the border workers are desperate to regain their former life. Before the crisis, they crossed the border every morning to go to work in Ceuta and returned to Morocco at the end of the day.

Mouhcen Ait El Hadj, one of them, a cook at "El Mentidero" for 15 years, has a lost gaze on the photo of his son. "He has already grown a lot. The last time I saw him, he was four years old and now he’s six," he tells El Faro de Ceuta. "Thanks to my boss who let me sleep on site, he buys me food and everything. Without him, I don’t know what I would have done. My dream would be to be able to live with my son and my wife," he adds.

Like him, Hassan, Lakbira and Rachida are clinging to their cell phones with which they exchange with their families. "I came here to realize my dream and that of my father. My father wanted me to be a good watchmaker and now, after six years, I am a watchmaker," confides Hassan Arahou. Lakbira Ijmai, for her part, left her son and mother in Fnideq to come to Ceuta where she has worked for 21 years as a domestic helper. "I’m here fighting and suffering for them," she says. As for Rachida, a nursing assistant since her arrival in Ceuta 14 years ago, she is still single and constantly thinks about her mother and "a new nephew" that she "doesn’t know".

Like these four cases, hundreds of border workers blocked in Ceuta are living in deplorable conditions, sometimes even on the street. "We stayed in Ceuta on March 13 because no one knew what was going to happen and because we are faithful to our commitments and our work that we have obtained with difficulty," affirms Hassan. And to add: "Are we legal or illegal workers? Don’t we have rights? I’m here condemned and my only crime is to be born in Morocco".

"We are living an inhuman situation, not because of our employers who treat us like members of their families, but because our rights are being violated. We are stuck here, we have no rights. Thank God, we work and we have a salary to support our families, but we haven’t seen them for a year and a half. We miss them a lot, but we can’t see them. We can’t renew our papers and we have no rights," laments Rachida, originally from the province of Sidi Kacem.

Hassan is devastated by the situation. "My son won’t understand that the border is closed, he just needs his father," he says. A Rolex technician at ’Chocrón Joyeros’ since March 15, 2015, he has been sleeping in a hostel for a year and a half. "The only thing we have left is our pride. Since we’ve been stuck here, no one has asked us what we eat and where we live. But despite this, we have remained silent because we are honest, dignified, hardworking and with great pride. The housekeepers did not want to abandon the elderly women because they love them and there is a wonderful coexistence," he adds.