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CEUTA, Spain \u2014<\/p>\nDeath toll in Spain-Morocco border crisis in Ceuta reaches 67 as tens of thousands cross back<\/p>\n
CEUTA, Spain \u2014<\/p>\n
The death toll in Spain\u2019s Ceuta border crisis with Morocco has climbed to 67, the Spanish government said Saturday. It included some who drowned and some who were killed in a stampede to cross a breakwater barrier.<\/p>\n
Related video above: Crowds of migrants swim around border from Morocco into Spanish territory of Ceuta<\/p>\n
Spain announced it was installing a 500-meter-long containment barrier along the breakwater fence into the sea after between 50,000 and 60,000 migrants breached the tiny Spanish territory\u2019s frontier between Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n
A handful of exhausted migrants who swam to Ceuta’s urban Tarajal beach Saturday morning were met by soldiers who escorted them back across the border. Spain’s interior ministry says the majority of those who entered the Spanish territory in North Africa have already returned to Morocco.<\/p>\n
After days of chaos and streets packed with people who had hoped for a better life in Spain, residents of Ceuta woke up Saturday to an uneasy calm.<\/p>\n
Even so, security for residents of the autonomous city of 84,000 remained bruised.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife in this city has been disrupted as a result of the border incident,\u201d said Ceuta’s president, Juan Jesus Vivas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe return of people has begun satisfactorily, but the process must be completed,\u201d he said. \u201cThe city has not yet returned to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Morocco, at Tangier\u2019s main railway station, migrants back from Ceuta or who had hoped to reach the European Union slept on the ground, exhausted, as passersby watched from a distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to cross, but I failed. I stayed near the border with Ceuta for two days, but I couldn\u2019t find anything to eat,\u201d said Abdalah, an aspiring migrant who asked that his last name not be published out of fear of retaliation for trying to cross illegally.<\/p>\n
On the road leading to the Moroccan town of Fnideq, which borders Ceuta, many migrants were seen walking toward the fence, some barefoot, apparently hoping to try their luck.<\/p>\n
Taxi drivers and bus operators were refusing to take them, fearing retaliation from authorities.<\/p>\n
Police officers were deployed along the road, stopping and checking every vehicle heading toward Fnideq.<\/p>\n
But some who had made it to Ceuta were determined to stay. Among them was Mohamed Hatri, a 23-year-old Moroccan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve closed everything down so that we can\u2019t buy anything to eat to force us to return to our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut even if they close it down, \u2026 we\u2019re round to stay here, whether we\u2019re hungry or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014 <\/p>\n
Oubachir reported from Fnideq, Morocco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Death toll in Spain-Morocco border crisis in Ceuta reaches 67 as tens of thousands cross back CEUTA, Spain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25867,25916,3299,16624,16050,7918,826,25259,3593,2264,6254,22886,17,25917],"class_list":["post-64372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-border-crossing","tag-breakwater-barrier","tag-ceuta","tag-death-toll","tag-drown","tag-food","tag-immigration","tag-juan-jesus-vivas","tag-migrants","tag-morocco","tag-north-africa","tag-sknd","tag-spain","tag-stampede"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}