Several thousand migrants swam across the Mediterranean from the Moroccan city of Fnideq to the Spanish North Africa exclave of Ceuta on Monday. The Moroccan police did not intervene, reported the Spanish newspaper El País, citing reports from eyewitnesses in Fnideq. According to her, 3,000 people are said to have crossed the border, including 700 minors and numerous families. So many people have never fled or migrated to Spain in a single day. The newspaper "El Faro" published in Ceuta put the number of migrants at at least 2,700. The people had to cover almost two kilometers in the water.
Both newspapers cited the diplomatic annoyance of the government in Rabat that Spain allowed medical treatment for the head of the West Saharan independence movement, Brahim Ghali, as a possible reason for the Moroccan police inactive.
He has been treated for corona disease in a Spanish hospital since April.
According to El País, the Moroccan secret service has found out that Ghali is being treated with a false identity in Logroño in northern Spain.
Tensions with Europe
Western Sahara on the North African Atlantic coast was a Spanish colony until 1975 - and is still controversial under international law today.
Morocco controls large parts of the sparsely populated area on its southern border.
The Polisario seeks independence for the Western Sahara.
Morocco only wants to grant the region autonomy.
Tensions rose again after a Moroccan military operation in Western Sahara in November.
In addition, US President Donald Trump, who had already been voted out but was still in office, confirmed Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara in December.
Since then, tensions between Morocco and European countries that criticized Trump's decision have also increased.
So Rabat called his ambassador back from Berlin in early May.
The authorities of the 85,000-inhabitant exclave of Ceuta were overwhelmed by the mass exodus. “There were about 70 people in the reception center for illegal migrants on Sunday. I don't know what to do with the people or where to put them, "the newspaper quoted a person in charge in Ceuta.