Spanish riot police fired rubber bullets into the air and used batons in an operation to clear thousands of migrants from beaches in the North African enclave of Ceuta and place some in temporary centres, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Spain estimates around 10,000 migrants are still in the tiny enclave. More than 72,000 people flooded into the enclave from Morocco in late July in an unprecedented influx across the border, although most have since left.
Authorities have built new temporary accommodation facilities on the enclave's port grounds with a capacity for 1,700 people. NGOs say thousands of people are still homeless and sleeping in makeshift camps.
The operation to remove migrants from the beaches began shortly before 7:00 a.m. local time (05:00 GMT) today and involved both riot police and the Spanish military.
Footage on Spanish public broadcaster TVE showed a crowd of people jostling as they tried to move along a designated route. Police fired rubber bullets into the air and hit several migrants with batons before the situation calmed down and the operation continued.
Later footage showed mostly adult men carrying their belongings and moving in small groups under police escort along a route just over a kilometer from the beach of “El Trampoline“ to the port.
The vast majority of migrants are men and boys. The temporary facilities are only for adult men, so minors are separated and housed separately.
Meanwhile, the European Commissioner for Migration, Magnus Brunner, said today that images of migrants pouring into Ceuta had boosted support for far-right parties despite a sharp drop in illegal arrivals to Europe following the tightening of migration policy.
“We have a reduction in arrivals, but the images from Ceuta, of course, overshadow the real successes and the real facts and figures“, Brunner told Reuters in an interview.
These images “feed the far right“, which is why “it is so important that these people are returned as soon as possible to show that we have the situation under control“, he said.
Asked about the proposal by the president of the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Wednesday an emergency framework to prevent "instigated and weaponized" mass migration flows, Brunner said, adding that the details would be discussed at the next EU Council meeting with member states. "But first and foremost, we need to implement the system we have already agreed on," he added.
Negative attitudes towards immigration have remained a significant political factor in Europe since more than a million people, many of them Syrians fleeing war, arrived in the EU in 2015. The influx has helped boost support for nationalist and far-right parties and has prompted many governments to adopt stricter immigration policies aimed at curbing migration and returning migrants.
Against this backdrop, Spain coach Luis de la Fuente announced the squad for the Nations League in Ceuta on Monday in a show of support for the Spanish city in North Africa, the Associated Press reported.
In the first squad announcement since Spain won the World Cup, De la Fuente introduced his squad in a video filmed in Ceuta with residents of the Spanish enclave.
De la Fuente did not directly mention the mass crossing of the border or its consequences, but said: “This is Ceuta, this is Spain.” His words reflect a growing sentiment in Spain that Ceuta - a territory that until the mass border crossings had been largely ignored by most mainland Spaniards - needs support.