Chaos of border crossing gives way to limbo for Moroccans on Ceuta’s streets

This week, more than fifty thousand people crossed into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the north African coast. The Guardian reports that roughly four hundred initially swam across the strait of Gibraltar—approximately twelve miles from mainland Spain—before a broader surge followed. One man, Youssef El Abbas, a forty-four-year-old Moroccan and father of four, was returning after seven years of exile; he'd been deported from Spain in twenty nineteen when his job and residency expired. Now thousands are stranded on Ceuta's streets in legal limbo, uncertain of their next steps.

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