A better life...

Jumping the fence to Europe

At Europe’s only land border with Africa, would-be migrants dream of a better life in Spain.

By GUY HEDGECO

The immigrant temporary stay center in Melilla is a long way from John Masal’s glamorous idea of life in Europe. But the 19-year-old from Sierra Leone says he’s happy because this is Europe — Spain, to be precise.

Situated on the edge of Melilla, one of two Spanish cities — the other is Ceuta — perched on the North African coast, it is a functional-looking building with a large green gate that occasionally emits distorted loudspeaker announcements. Masal says it is crowded inside and there is a shortage of drinking water. Meanwhile, 100 meters or so away, a six-meter-high triple security fence stretches into the distance.

Separated from Morocco only by those imposing fences, Melilla and Ceuta represent Europe’s only land border with Africa.

Sitting in the shade outside the stay center, Masal tells POLITICO his knowledge of Spain is based mainly on football.

“My dream is playing football,” he says. “I love Real Madrid and Barcelona.”

It’s a common aspiration among the thousands of sub-Saharan Africans who journey north each year in a bid to reach Melilla or Ceuta, either by water, hidden in a vehicle or by scaling one of the fences. Masal spent three months living in a makeshift camp in a forest on the Moroccan side of the border, repeatedly trying to get over the Melilla fence, despite being thwarted by the police each time. He recalls not washing for a month and being bitten by ants at night. Eventually, in March, he and a group of fellow migrants got through a hole in the fence.

“I’m happy because I’m here,” he says. “I want a better life for me and my family.”

This border is tightly controlled by Morocco, with the cooperation of Spain. Although this route to Europe has also been popular with Syrian refugees, in recent years the two countries have managed to reduce the numbers of those who manage to reach Ceuta and Melilla. Only 7 percent of the 4,000 migrants who tried to jump the Melilla fence in 2016 were successful, according to the Spanish government. Those who do make it are usually taken to the mainland after several months in the immigrant stay center, although Spain’s bilateral accords with a number of African nations mean some are then returned home.

Despite the controls, Spain’s twin African cities are still a magnet for those who are prepared to endure desperate conditions in the hope that they, like Masal, will one day make it to the other side. Moreover, the anomalous geographical status of Ceuta and Melilla gives these migrants a crucial role in the often tense relationship between Morocco and its European partners to the north. Like Turkey, the North African country sees its control of migration as a powerful bargaining chip with the EU.

The king’s annoyance

On February 17, 498 sub-Saharan migrants reached Ceuta by breaching the border fence, a record-breaking number, which was followed by another 356 three days later.

One Spanish civil guard, who was on duty on the first of those nights, told El País newspaper that the Moroccan police, normally quick to act when they suspect migrants are attempting to get through, had appeared to ignore the attempt altogether. In recent weeks, many more migrants have reached Ceuta, mainly by boat, leaving its migrant temporary stay center at over triple its capacity of 500. Meanwhile, the Spanish government has reinforced security along the Melilla border.

“Eight hundred and fifty-five people have jumped the fence [to Ceuta] in just a few days, while all of last year around 1,000 did so,” notes Ignacio Cembrero, a Spanish journalist and author who covers Morocco. “Something is up.”

Cembrero and many others believe Morocco deliberately relaxed its border controls as a way of channeling King Mohammed VI’s annoyance at a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling on an agricultural issue in December. That decision treated Western Sahara as separate from Morocco, which has claimed sovereignty of the 266,000-square-kilometer territory since 1975 despite resistance from the Polisario Front independence movement.

The Moroccan government immediately voiced its concern at the ruling, and a few weeks later, on February 6, Aziz Akhannouch, the minister of agriculture, hinted that Rabat would use its management of migration as retribution.

“How do you [Europeans] want us to do the job of stopping African — and even Moroccan — emigration if today Europe doesn’t want to work with us?” he told Spanish news agency EFE.

A communiqué from his ministry was even more explicit, warning that the ECJ decision risked “a resumption of the migration flows that Morocco, through sustained efforts, has managed to contain.”

This came as little surprise to many Morocco observers, who say Spain, in particular, is frequently the recipient of such treatment.

“When it comes to doing business with Spain, Morocco uses immigration as if it were a currency,” Ramón Carrasco, of the Spanish Civil Guard’s representative body, the AUGC, tells POLITICO. Based in Melilla, Carrasco and his colleagues there and in Ceuta are on the front line when it comes to Spain’s management of its southernmost border.

“Every time a fishing or agricultural accord is imminent, the pressure increases a lot and a lot more people start arriving than normal,” he says, convinced that the rise in numbers of migrants crossing since earlier this year is yet another instance of Morocco using its “currency.”

Another oft-cited example of this took place in August 2014, when the Spanish civil guard riled King Mohammed VI by intercepting his yacht in the waters off Ceuta. In the following days, 1,200 migrants arrived in Spain from Morocco.

Just weather

The Spanish government, predictably, plays down any such link between Moroccan chagrin and an increase in migration numbers. Despite the confrontational rhetoric of the Moroccan agriculture, minister, others close to the government insist the recent spike in arrivals has been a coincidence.

“What happens in Ceuta is related only to weather conditions,” Abdelali Hammidine, a senior member of Morocco’s Justice and Development Party (PJD), which has governed since 2011, tells POLITICO. He was referring to how a calm sea often encourages migrants to attempt the water crossing to Spain’s two African cities or its mainland.

Hammidine is also quick to point out that Morocco has started helping sub-Saharans to settle in his country rather than using it merely as a stepping stone to the north. Since 2014, 12,000 migrants have been granted residency papers, he says, allowing them to work legally in cities such as Rabat and Casablanca.

“There is a new development in that Morocco is now a country of residence for immigrants and not only of transit to Europe,” he says.

It is a successful policy, which again appears to have been driven at least in part by the Western Sahara issue. With the international community mostly refusing to acknowledge Morocco’s claim on the territory, Rabat is seeking diplomatic support from countries to its south by offering residency to their citizens.

“Immigration is used by Morocco as a card in order to have a better negotiating position with Europe, regarding Sahara and the development of Morocco,” says Maati Monjib, a political historian. “But it is also used in order to have better relations with other African countries.”

Hazardous crossing

The wages may be lower in Morocco than in Europe, but by staying in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africans can avoid the dangers that trying to reach countries such as Spain and Italy can entail.

In 2016, an average of 14 migrants died each day attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR. And Spain’s handling of migration came under scrutiny in 2014, after 15sub-Saharan Africans who were trying to swim around the border fence to Ceuta drowned. An investigation is still open after it was revealed that civil guards with anti-riot gear who were waiting on the shore had fired rubber bullets into the water, possibly causing the panic that led to the tragedy.

Meanwhile, other hazards await those who attempt to get over or through the fences surrounding Ceuta and Melilla. In the multiple attempts that migrants usually make before succeeding, the fence’s razor wire can inflict ugly wounds and the Moroccan police are often waiting.

Alasan Barry, a 20-year-old from Sierra Leone, spent five months camping out in the forests of Mt. Gourougou, overlooking Melilla, during which time he made three unsuccessful attempts at climbing the fence. He says the Moroccan police beat him and his friends each time they were caught.

“The fourth time, that was my lucky day,” he says, speaking outside Melilla’s immigrant stay center.

“It’s very difficult, very, very difficult,” he says of the whole ordeal. “If I had the chance I would tell my brother or my friends not [to do it].”

He is now waiting for the Spanish authorities to take him to the Spanish mainland where, like thousands of others from sub-Saharan Africa, he will try to eke out a living. After three monotonous months living in the crowded stay center, his excitement at arriving in Europe has been dampened, but he expects his compatriots and others to keep coming.

“It’s not good to come over the fence, it’s not good,” he says. “[But] if they have to come, they have to come — and take their chances.”