I think I woke up when the engines began to hum so hard that the ferry from Algeciras to Ceuta shook and trembled all over. We, journalists, sometimes do not realize how fast our movements around the planet are. The day before that evening I was in Paris, at dawn - in Brussels, in the morning - in Malaga. Then for a couple of hours by car I got to the southernmost outskirts of Spain, and now the ferry was already taking me to Africa to the screams of seagulls and the cold spray of the Mediterranean Sea.
Strong winds and waves shake the giant ship so that all passengers are thrown from side to side. And I think about refugees. How do they manage to cross such distances in their small boats? How many are drowning before European border guards or non-governmental organizations find out about them? In the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, it is easier for them to get over. There the wall goes overland and protrudes slightly into the sea. And in the week, as they say, all the stars converged. There was a strong low tide at night, the sea was absolutely calm.
A diplomatic scandal erupted between Spain and Morocco over the fact that Madrid decided to treat covid for a man whom Moroccans consider an enemy because he is fighting for the independence of Western Sahara. Therefore, Rabat gave the order to the border guards - to sit and watch in silence. People found out - and went: crowds, thousands, a rampart, at one border crossing, at the other end of the enclave. All they had to do was get around the wall. Someone swam at most 200 meters in the water, someone was trampled in a crush, one drowned. Spanish police rushed along the beach, trying to stop at least someone. Then, just as amusingly, the military in helmets and body armor rushed about the beach, barely jumping off the armored personnel carriers.
Spanish journalists fought in impotent anger against the Moroccan border guards and shamed Morocco, and doctors were torn, trying to provide these thousands of arrivals with masks, and also to give everyone a covid test: nobody canceled the epidemic. The locals were just scared. As the taxi driver told me, they decided that they had come to conquer - never before have so many people and immediately rushed into Ceuta. "Gardens of Argentina", a small park in the center of the city, was turned into a rookery - of course, there were not enough places in the shelters for everyone.
The city's utilities have carefully placed a huge container in the center of the park so that refugees dump garbage there, rather than throw it around. There are many migrants, and the feeling that they are everywhere - on every street, at every stall, at the foot of the historic fort. They go and beg. From passing cars they shout after them: "Long live Spain!" At one of the gas stations, two grandfathers openly began to shout at them, drive them away like annoying flies. Those, with anger in their eyes, wandered off to beg for money from others. Whoever I ask, they tell the same story: there is no work, no money, so they want to get in ... and further down the list from Barcelona to Great Britain.
None of them know any language other than Arabic, although I have always had a strong conviction that French is understood in Morocco.
All are young, this time there are a lot of children under 18. In Ceuta they will be stuck for many months.
The lucky ones will be distributed to other parts of Spain, and from there the road will be open further.
The main difficulty for them is to get from the enclave to the mainland.
You can buy a ferry ticket, but at the entrance everything is carefully checked - both luggage and documents.
There was one guy in my presence who assured me that he had simply lost his passport, was not allowed to board the ship, took him right by the scruff of his neck and took him out into the street.
The Spanish police have heard all their stories more than once, they know how to work with such people.
They don't stand on ceremony with migrants.
They are tired of them, neither the local Spaniards nor the Moroccans living legally on this side of the border want to see them.
They say that young people are different now, lazy, they don't want to learn anything, they only do that they eat, sleep and smoke hashish all day long. He goes to Europe because he thinks that they can do the same there and for this they will also be paid all sorts of different benefits. Partly true. But the reality is often different. They do not take root in society, do not integrate, settle in ethnic communities, often end up in drug-related criminal circles, are psychologically vulnerable, and therefore succumb to the influence of radical ideas. Well, then, as one Moroccan said at the border, a problem happens, a big problem, either in Belgium or in France.
During the pandemic, the topic of migrants faded into the background, if you do not take into account the French terrorist attacks. But now, when Europe is finally seriously talking about the opening of borders and the resumption of transport links, the flow of people wishing to be in the countries of the Old World has noticeably increased. And in the Canary Islands, people landed twice as much compared to last year. Last week 2,400 people sailed to Lampedusa in one day. Once again, there was a whiff of humanitarian disaster from overcrowded refugee reception centers. And again there are calls to European colleagues to pick up, take away, distribute. And again in response, silence.
The countries of southern Europe again clutched their heads: in Libya alone, about a million people from Africa have accumulated in refugee camps. Of these, 70 thousand are already off the coast, waiting for their turn and the opportunity to sail to Europe. Moreover, all kinds of non-governmental organizations that have their own ships now freely catch migrants at sea, take them to Italy and drop them off at ports. Since the beginning of the year, more than 13 thousand people have been saved in this way, which is already three times more than in 2019 and 2020.
The migration crisis, which is really strangling Europe, should have been included in the agenda of the summit, which began the day before. But wherever there, Belarus drew all the attention to itself. But there is a problem, and it cannot be solved in one day. The old principle of distribution of migrants is no longer valid. And the new one was never approved. There is a certain set of proposals that do not really suit anyone, except for the southern countries. The bottom line is that each country voluntarily, on the basis of solidarity, will take for itself a certain number of migrants who have arrived on the shores of the EU. I don’t know by what principle they will be selected - whether to leaf through the catalog, look at external data? Because for skilled workers the scheme is different, it is about illegal immigrants, young people who know little.
There are countries that categorically refuse to take refugees for themselves. These are Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In this case, they are offered another solidarity - financial. They must send people home at their own expense. The nuance is that for this you still need to get the consent of the country where they are being expelled, and oh, how difficult it is to do this, ask the same France. So, if within eight months it will not be possible to do all this, then the migrants will need to be kept at home. Such obligations do not suit them. Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France generally prefer that migrants stay in the countries of the first line - where they cross the border with the EU. Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Italy and Spain do not want to turn into a continuous refugee camp, especially since these countries of Southern Europe have already suffered the most economically during the pandemic.And in general, they now dream of tourists, and not of continuing to give empty hotels to refugees.
There is no solution, and the problem may come to the fore this summer.
Morocco, where the level of poverty has increased sevenfold during the pandemic, threatens to plant another thousand one hundred migrants in Ceuta, the agreement on curbing the flow with Turkey is also expiring.
In general, it looks like the stars can converge again.
But not in the configuration needed for Europe.
Experts warn that the old woman may now face a new test - an unprecedented influx of refugees after a two-year break.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.