Spain Denies Link Between Polisario Leader’s Treatment and Migrant Surge in Ceuta

18 May 2021 – bySylvanus@Bladi · 1 min read

Arancha González Laya, Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain, returns to the emergency admission of Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario, in a hospital in Logroño, near Zaragoza, under the borrowed name of Mohamed Ben Battouche, of Algerian nationality. She rules out any link between the disagreement with Rabat on this issue and the arrival of thousands of Moroccan migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Monday.

"It was, and it is simply, a humanitarian issue, a humanitarian response to a request for humanitarian aid from a person who was in a very, very fragile health situation," said Arancha González Laya in an interview with the radio Cadena Ser, thus once again trying to justify the reception of Brahim Ghali in Spain. She says she cannot conceive that "one can endanger the lives of minors at sea as we have seen in the last few hours in Ceuta" and that this could be "a response to a humanitarian action".

The head of Spanish diplomacy also said that Moroccan officials had "assured" the Spanish authorities that this influx of migrants into the Spanish enclave "was not the result of the disagreement" between the two countries. Disagreement linked to the hospitalization of the separatist leader in Spain.

In total, 6,000 people joined the Ceuta enclave on Monday, according to figures provided by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior. The Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said that about 1,500 migrants have already been expelled to Morocco.

Category: Spain

Keywords:

Spain Algeria Rabat Ceuta Polisario Brahim Ghali