Spanish government says sorry to people of Ceuta for migrant crisis

Spanish authorities have apologized to Ceuta’s residents for the migrant situation that has affected the city for weeks and announced plans to overhaul the country’s migration legislation. Defence Minister Margarita Robles told a parliamentary committee, “I privation to apologise to each those who whitethorn person felt, oregon who adjacent inactive feel, abandoned oregon not sufficiently cared for.” She added, “I person witnessed first-hand your feelings of anxiety, of abandonment, of deficiency of safety.” At least 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa, on 30 and 31 July. Most of the migrants swam around the border barrier, and at least 100 radical died during the crossing, according to figures provided by Ceuta’s mayor, Juan Jesús Vivas. The immense bulk of those individuals returned to Morocco within hours of arrival, but several 1000 remain in Ceuta, many of them children, sleeping rough on beaches and streets. The Socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has faced mounting pressure to resolve the situation, with local residents and Ceuta’s authorities—which serve a population of 84,000—describing the circumstances as unsustainable. In response, the Sánchez administration has declared a state of involvement for national information in the city, centralising oversight of the crisis. Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Víctor Torres has been tasked with coordinating the response, relieving the Ceuta local authorities of that responsibility.