Spain has formally asked the European Union for emergency funding after more than 70,000 people crossed into the enclave of Ceuta at the end of July, Al Jazeera reports. The European Commission says it is assessing the request as a priority.
Between 3,500 and 7,000 people, five to ten percent of those who arrived, remain in the enclave and have not been returned. They are housed in makeshift camps and temporary reception centres while cases are processed, a process regional officials have criticized as slow.
The number that should not be passed over
At least 90 people died on both sides of the border, according to official figures. Human rights groups put the toll higher.
That is the most important fact in this story, and it sits underneath a funding request. We are giving both figures because we cannot verify either, and because the gap between an official count and an NGO count is itself information: it usually reflects bodies recovered against people reported missing by families.
What Madrid has decided
The government approved a "single command" under Angel Victor Torres, the territorial policy minister, with the stated priority of "the return and repatriation of the greatest possible number of people, adults and minors", while providing humanitarian assistance to those who qualify for asylum and to unaccompanied children.
Those two objectives are in tension by design, and the phrasing acknowledges it. Maximum returns and case-by-case asylum assessment pull in opposite directions, and which one prevails depends on how the processing is actually conducted rather than on the announcement.
Moroccan police have arrested more than 100 people attempting to reach the enclave. Ceuta's position, a Spanish city on the North African coast, means Moroccan enforcement is the first determinant of how many people arrive, which gives Rabat considerable leverage in its dealings with Madrid and Brussels.
Why the EU is being asked
Ceuta is an external border of the European Union, so the Commission's interest is institutional rather than charitable. It said it remains "fully engaged at all levels" to ensure the security of the EU's external borders, which is a statement about borders rather than about the people at them.
What we could not establish
We could not establish how much money Spain has requested or from which fund, the nationalities of those who arrived, how many have been returned and to where, the conditions in the reception centres, or Morocco's official position. We verified this account from a single publication.
