Spain urges calm after anti-migrant clashes
“Spain's interior minister called for calm on Friday after residents of Ceuta clashed with police during protests against migrants who have remained in the North African enclave following a mass influx…”
Tensions have been high in the territory of 80,000 inhabitants since tens of thousands of people crossed into Ceuta from Morocco over several days in July, triggering a Europe-wide migrant alert. Spain's leftist government says most have since left the enclave of 18.5 square kilometres (seven square miles) but thousands remain wandering the streets and sleeping on beaches.
Demonstrations have intensified in recent days, with some protesters clashing with police on Thursday at a beach where migrants have been sleeping. Some of their belongings were burned. A soldier was injured in a separate incident on Thursday when migrants threw stones at troops, while 12 Moroccan migrants were arrested.
Two more arrests were made after migrants attacked a police officer, sources said. "Violence is not the answer," Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska. "I call for calm and an end to any form of violence, because... violence is not the way to resolve any problem with the complexity" of that facing Ceuta, he added.
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The head of Ceuta's local government, Juan Vivas, said peaceful protests "to demand the return to normality" were justified, but warned that authorities would take action against anyone who commits acts of vandalism.
"We totally reject the use of any kind of violence," he said in an institutional address, adding: "No one can or should take the law into their own hands. "Right-wing and far-right parties have demanded that all the migrants be rounded up and sent back to their home countries.
Grande-Marlaska accused those commentators of "inciting hatred and confrontation" in Ceuta.
Written by Sheheryar Munawar
Aman-e-Pakistan Senior Journalist & Bureau Reporter
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