Spain arrests two for charging migrants to sleep in garages in crisis-hit Ceuta
Spanish police on Wednesday said they had arrested two people suspected of exploiting migrants who had arrived during July’s influx to Ceuta by charging them to sleep in garages unfit for human habitation.
The announcement illustrates the humanitarian crisis that Spain’s north African territory has suffered for weeks after tens of thousands of migrants entered from Morocco on July 30th-31st.
Most returned in the following hours, but thousands remained in precarious conditions in the small, overwhelmed city, sleeping rough or in makeshift tents.
The suspects are believed to have “obtained large financial gains by exploiting the particularly vulnerable situation of the migrants who had recently arrived in the city”, police said in a statement.
Around 20 migrants paid some €30 ($35) per person every day to sleep “on the floor, in spaces designated for vehicle parking and without adequate living conditions”, including in storage rooms.
They only received mattresses and blankets if they stumped up the full amount, had to pay to charge their phones and received death threats to dissuade them from reporting their situation, the police added.
The suspects are also accused of offering clandestine trips from Ceuta to mainland Spain for €6,000, but police did not specify if any such transport took place.
In August, police announced five people had been arrested for charging recently arrived migrants up to €9,000 for that journey.
Ceuta and Spain’s other north African territory of Melilla are the European Union’s only land borders with Africa.
But border checks apply to all travellers heading from the enclaves to mainland Spain, in an exception within Europe’s Schengen free-travel area.
