Spain’s defence minister on Thursday accused Morocco of engaging in “blackmail” after thousands of migrants surged into the Spanish territory of Ceuta in North Africa.
“We will not accept the slightest blackmail or questioning of the territorial integrity [of Spain],” Defence Minister Margarita Robles told Spanish broadcaster RNE on Thursday.
The situation in Ceuta was largely back to normal on Thursday, after more than 8,000 migrants, including some 2,000 minors, had arrived in the Spanish exclave – and therefore the European Union – between Monday and Tuesday.
The migrants had managed to swim around the border fence to Ceuta after Morocco suddenly suspended security controls along the Mediterranean coastline without explanation.
By Wednesday evening, some 5,600 of these migrants had already been sent back to Morocco.
The view in Madrid is that Morocco allowed the migrants to cross unimpeded because the government was angry over Spain’s medical aid to a leader of the Western Sahara secessionist movement.
Robles described Morocco’s action as “aggression against Spain and the EU.”
She accused Rabat of violating international law and of abusing young people and even children “to play politics”.
Spanish media said the Moroccan government is annoyed that Madrid allowed the entry of Brahim Ghali, the secretary-general of the Polisario Front movement.
The movement seeks the independence of North Africa’s disputed Western Sahara. Morocco took over Western Sahara in 1975 after Spain withdrew from the region.
It claims the area as part of its territory. The Polisario Front seeks the territory’s independence.
Ghali has been treated in Spain for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) since April.
(dpa/NAN)
