In the early hours of 24 September Spain’s Interior Ministry moved 75 National Police officers and three Civil-Guard reserve platoons into the Ceuta land border with Morocco. The reinforcement follows a flurry of TikTok and Telegram messages urging migrants to storm the El Tarajal crossing the previous day. Although the threatened rush never materialised, authorities described the posts as credible enough to warrant a preventive show of force. Engineers also began extending the floating barrier installed in August after wave action dislodged several buoys. The reinforced line will be anchored deeper into the seabed and supplemented by a 40-metre-long steel boom attached to the breakwater, officials said. Works are scheduled overnight to avoid disrupting daytime traffic in the busy enclave. Local business groups welcomed the move, noting that July’s incursion forced wholesalers to shut warehouses for three days and caused estimated losses of €4.2 million. However, NGOs warned that militarising the frontier risks breaching asylum obligations if would-be refugees are pushed back without screening—a point already under scrutiny by EU inspectors who visited Ceuta last week. For cross-border workers—many of whom live in neighbouring Fnideq—the deployment means longer morning queues as entry lanes are reduced for security checks. Employers with Moroccan staff should provide arrival-time flexibility and remind workers to carry up-to-date frontier worker permits. Travel-risk teams should also monitor scheduled roadworks: the Civil Guard has warned haulage companies that checkpoint lanes may close intermittently while cranes install the new barrier segments. Night-time convoys could face diversions via the Avenida Martínez Catena loop, adding up to 30 minutes to port-terminal access.
Source: SpainNews.co.uk
