Spain has begun installing a 200-metre floating barrier made of industrial buoys just off the El Tarajal break-water in Ceuta after an estimated 50,000 people forced the frontier with Morocco on 31 July, leaving at least 67 dead. Maritime engineers from state-owned rescue company Sasemar positioned the first segments on Saturday, 1 August, while Civil Guard divers fixed steel cables to the seabed. Interior officials say the barrier is a “temporary emergency measure” designed to create the “physical element of containment” that the Supreme Court said was missing when it outlawed summary push-backs of swimmers three weeks ago. The government insists that the structure will not extend into Moroccan waters and therefore does not breach international law. Human-rights NGOs disagree, warning that the barrier could funnel exhausted migrants into dangerous currents and increase drownings. Pictures of the bright-orange buoys quickly went viral in North-African social media groups, where facilitators had circulated the Supreme Court ruling as proof the coast was “open.” For companies moving staff to Spain, the barrier signals that Ceuta and Melilla will remain high-security zones for the foreseeable future. Customs brokers operating the busy port of Algeciras already report longer inspection times for Morocco-bound trucks, while tour operators are reviewing itineraries that include the two enclaves. Legal experts also note that Madrid is testing a loophole: if the court’s condition is simply the existence of a physical obstacle, buoy lines could become the norm at maritime sections of the EU’s external border—an approach that may be replicated by Greece and Italy. In the short term, the floating wall gives Spanish security forces a legal basis to intercept and immediately return anyone who tries to climb over or swim around it. Whether it deters departures from the Moroccan side will depend less on the plastic barrier itself than on diplomatic pressure and economic incentives Madrid and Brussels can offer Rabat.
Source: Associated Press
