Ceuta plans second eviction after hundreds of migrants return to Trampolín beach

Trampolín Beach Faces a Second Forced Clearance as Hundreds of Migrants Circle Back

Usagevpn.com – Ceuta’s municipal authorities are preparing to launch a second round of forced removals at Trampolín beach on Friday, just one day after roughly 500 migrants walked back to the sandy strip where they had been housed in improvised shelters. The operation, carried out by city cleaning crews, follows an initial eviction earlier in the week that authorities believed had cleared the area. Within hours of that first sweep, however, the displaced individuals made their way back, turning what was meant to be a one-time intervention into a recurring cycle of removal and return.

A Pattern of Return

The sequence of events on Thursday afternoon exposed the fragility of the earlier intervention. Migrants who had been transported that morning to temporary reception facilities at Loma Margarita and El Embolsamiento — sites with a combined capacity of 1,800 people — began reappearing at the beach by mid-afternoon. By evening, the makeshift encampment had reformed around them. City officials confirmed that the original cleaning operation had been pulled back because crews could not guarantee the physical safety of workers once the displaced population started flowing back in. A repeat of that withdrawal is expected on Friday unless the situation stabilises before crews arrive.

The structures at Trampolín are rudimentary: reeds lashed together, plastic sheeting, and flattened cardboard boxes form walls and roofs. During the night before the second cleanup, journalists stationed nearby counted approximately ten canvas tents pitched directly on the sand alongside the denser cluster of improvised shelters. The scene underscores how quickly a beachfront can become a temporary settlement when formal housing options are scarce or distrusted.

Fear of Deportation Fuels the Return

Behind the logistics of moving people from one point in Ceuta to another lies a deeper anxiety. Many of those camped at Trampolín believe that transfer into the four newly opened reception centres — facilities established by Spain’s central government — is not a neutral administrative step but a preliminary stage toward eventual expulsion back to Morocco. That perception has made compliance with the first eviction short-lived. For migrants who have crossed the Strait of Gibraltar on foot or by small boat, the prospect of being processed through a formal centre and then handed over to Moroccan authorities is, in their view, simply a slower route to the same outcome.

Conflicting Headcounts

Official numbers for both the original eviction and the subsequent return remain unsettled. Police figures place the number of people removed during the first operation at approximately 4,000. Government sources in Ceuta, however, put the figure closer to 1,500. The gap between those two estimates — a difference of more than 2,500 people — complicates any assessment of how many individuals are currently in the temporary facilities versus how many have slipped back onto the beach. No single authoritative count of the roughly 500 who returned on Thursday afternoon has been published.

Vivas Questions the Strategy

Juan Vivas, president of Ceuta’s autonomous government, has voiced pointed criticism of what he sees as a superficial response to a structural problem. Speaking publicly about the relocation effort, he stated:

“Moving them from Trampolín to other places in Ceuta does not show a willingness to solve the problem.”

Vivas’s government has identified additional sites where displaced migrants could be housed if the current centres prove insufficient: the Hípica facilities, a military base, the former football pitch at the Cavalry barracks, and the El Guano area. These locations were agreed upon in coordination with the central government as contingency options.

Expanding Capacity and the Food-Bag Factor

Elma Saiz, Spain’s Minister for Migration, has indicated that the number of available reception places will be raised to 4,000, roughly doubling the current capacity. Whether that expansion will address the underlying distrust among migrants remains an open question, particularly given the fear that formal processing leads to deportation.

A complicating factor on Thursday was the distribution of approximately 4,000 food bags by the Red Cross in the vicinity of Trampolín. The handouts drew people to the beach area for reasons unrelated to shelter: many individuals who were not actually camped there simply came to collect a meal. That influx of transient visitors blurred the line between genuine residents of the encampment and passers-by, further muddying the headcount and adding pressure to an already strained situation.

Ceuta’s Structural Vulnerability

Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the north coast of Africa, sits just metres from Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar. Its small land area and limited housing stock make it perpetually exposed to migration pressure. When groups cross the water — often at night, wading through shallow channels or riding small craft — they arrive directly on Ceutan beaches. Trampolín, a popular recreational spot for local residents, has become the default landing zone for those arrivals, creating recurring friction between the city’s need to maintain public spaces and the migrants’ need for immediate shelter.

The second eviction attempt on Friday will therefore be watched not merely as a municipal cleaning exercise but as a test of whether Ceuta’s authorities can break the cycle of removal, return, and renewed confrontation. If the pattern repeats a third time, the question will shift from logistics to policy: whether temporary centres, expanded capacity, and food distribution can substitute for the durable housing and legal pathways that migrants say they need to stay put.