Hundreds of Ceuta residents have today returned to the streets in protest against detention centers for migrants who are being prepared by the government as a preliminary step towards their expulsion from the Spanish enclave in North Africa.
© Lusa
03/09/2026
by
Lusa
The protests of the residents this time concentrated on an open area next to a day care center that is being prepared by the government, as well as against the announcement of another detention center in the West Pier of the port, next to two residential areas.
The protest, which also had the support of residents of other neighborhoods, aimed to express its opposition to the location of the new migrant reception center next to these two population centers.
The protesters, who blocked the traffic in the area, interrupting the landings from the port of Algeciras (Cádiz), wanted to make clear their rejection of the state administration, owner of the land.
The residents read a statement expressing their “concern and disagreement” with the installation of this reception centre for migrants in the port area.
Also this afternoon workers, families and residents held another protest in the terrace at the Nossa Senhora de África day care center, which is being prepared to host another reception center for migrants.
The protest even led to the workers’ standstill, after the affected have made it clear that they intend to continue with the actions until the government reverses its decision to build the settlement with an educational center for children from 0 to 3 years old.
Families also denounced the insecurity generated by this situation.
More than 70,000 people entered Ceuta illegally between 30 and 31 July, in what the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, described as a “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity” and responsible for the human trafficking mafias that misrepresented a recent sentence on return of migrants arriving in Spain to swim.
More than 90% of the people who illegally entered the Spanish enclave in North Africa, bordering Morocco, left Ceuta on time and in the immediate days, but at least 5,000 remain in the city, including thousands on the streets.
Sánchez considered that Spain and Europe were the target of an attack in Ceuta that used immigration and in which Israel and Russia were also involved, with the amplification in social networks of misinformation related to the event.