Plans to build a large migrant housing camp next to a nursery school in Ceuta have prompted protests from parents and teachers in the Spanish exclave, according to broadcaster SER.
Several thousand migrants remain in Ceuta following an influx in July, with many still living in makeshift tents made of garbage and reeds on the city’s beach. Authorities are now moving to build more permanent housing for those who remain.
One of the planned facilities, intended to hold up to 900 people, would be located in the Los Rosales area behind the city’s old prison — just steps from a nursery school due to reopen to children within days.
Local parents and teachers staged a protest against the site. One resident told SER, “We’re complaining because the children won’t be able to study next to a settlement for who knows how many Moroccans.”
Another nearby resident said outlying neighborhoods bear a disproportionate burden of housing migrants compared with wealthier areas of the city center. “Those of us who live on the outskirts are always the ones who have to bear the brunt of it,” the resident said.
Rather than abandoning the camp plan, city officials are reportedly considering moving the nursery’s children to other daycare centers in Ceuta instead.
The push to build new camps has also caused friction among migrants themselves. Police were reportedly forced to fire warning shots this week after hundreds of migrants clashed in a stampede to get into what was described as temporary accommodation.
Ceuta’s chief prosecutor, Silvia Rojas, said this week that a sexual assault has been reported to authorities nearly every day since the July influx began, including at least nine alleged assaults against children, the youngest of whom was 10 years old.
