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Spain is the top European immigration destination since its Socialist government gave he green light for open borders, and now police are warning that 50,000 illegal immigrants from Africa are waiting in Morocco to invade the country via the Strait of Gibraltar. Already, boatloads of migrants are washing up on Spanish beaches in scenes that have shocked observers. The number of migrants waiting to storm Spain is growing with the men becoming more violent, as was demonstrated last week when 800 invaders used flamethrowers and feces to attack the police as they stormed the border in Ceuta.
Police sources are warning that 50,000 illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are waiting in Morocco to invade Spain.
As we reported yesterday, boatloads of migrants are already washing up on Spanish beaches in scenes that have shocked observers.
Now according to a report in Spanish newspaper El Mundo, North Africa is becoming a “pressure cooker,” with at least 50,000 African migrants desperate to cross into the European country via the Strait of Gibraltar.
The report explains how criminal people smugglers are helping the migrants circumvent border controls in Morocco while telling them that Spain is their “paradise”.
The number of migrants waiting to storm Spain is currently at 50,000 and “continues to grow,” with the men becoming more “violent” in their efforts to reach Europe.
Spain has become the number one point of arrival for migrants crossing the sea to Europe in 2018, with over 21,000 arrivals so far, a process that has quickened after the country’s socialist government gave the green light for open borders.
An estimated 800 sub-Saharan migrants attempted to cross the border between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta at 6:45am through a 23-foot high fence. 602 of them succeeded and now are applying for immigration. 15 law-enforcement officers were injured in the clash. The invaders with homemade shields threw stones, Molotov cocktails, and feces at police. They also used gasoline sprays to make flamethrowers. [Can’t imagine why anyone would not welcome these people into their homeland, can you?} -GEG
Migrants attempted to cross the seven-meter high fence separating Morocco from Spain at 6:35 a.m. They threw stones, homemade shielrs, Molotov cocktails, feces and hashish at law enforcement representatives and used sprays as flamethrowers. The migrants also tried to cut the barbed wire on the fence with scissors and hammers. Once inside Spanish territory, they threw stones at cars of the Civil Guard.
Border agents arrested hundreds on the Moroccan side and more were detained in Ceuta, El Pais reports.
According to The Local.es, the scramble over the barrier is the biggest in Ceuta since February 2017, when more than 850 migrants entered the overseas territory over four days.
It comes as Spain becomes the number one destination for migrants crossing the Mediterranean by boat, surpassing Italy with 19,586 arrivals so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration.
592 migrants who managed to cross the border had applied with the International Organization for Migration; 132 of them were injured, and 11 migrants were taken to hospitals.
Aquarius, the ship carrying 630 migrants that was turned away from Italy, docked in Valencia, Spain. Numerous students living in a local student residence were told to pack their bags and leave within 24 hours, despite having paid for their accommodations. Citizens across Europe have been booted out of their own homes to be replaced by migrants.
Students in Spain have been forced to leave their homes despite having paid their accommodation fees to make way for migrants who just arrived on the Aquarius rescue ship in Valencia.
The ship docked in Valencia on Sunday, carrying 630 migrants who were promised free healthcare and possible asylum by Spain’s socialist government. The boat was previously turned away by Italy after the country’s new anti-mass migration interior minister Matteo Salvini denied it access.
Online daily Actualidad Valdepeñas reports that shortly after some of the migrants arrived in Alicante, numerous students living in a local student residence were told to pack their bags and leave within 24 hours, despite having agreed contracts on and paid for their accommodation.
A German language student named Rubén was told to leave despite having paid €750 a month for his room.
The young man’s mother told the news outlet that the students were told to leave “because (the migrants) come with many illnesses” and it wasn’t safe for them to remain there.
“It’s like we are solving one problem by causing others, and this is a big problem because right now there is nowhere in Alicante for my son to live and continue with his studies. We are going to go there to see if we can find something, but it will be very difficult since everything is already booked for the summer months,” she said.
The mother added that the “illness” explanation was likely a just an excuse because authorities wouldn’t house hundreds of sick migrants in the middle of a bustling tourist city.
The vast majority of the migrants are from African countries like Sudan and Nigeria, with others coming from Eritrea, South Sudan and Algeria.
This is by no means the first time citizens in Europe have been turfed out of their homes to be replaced by migrants.
Back in 2016, a hospital on the Italian island of Sardinia was ordered to kick out local patients in order to make way for migrants.
The German government also announced it would spend €600 million euros housing migrants in upmarket Berlin hotels at a cost of €18,000 per “refugee,” while the city’s 10,000 homeless population remained on the streets.
Spain’s new Socialist Workers’ Party government announced it wants to remove the border fences in Ceuta and Melilla, the country’s territory in Morocco on the coast of North Africa. This will effectively open the border for mass crossings by illegal African immigrants to enter the welfare states of Western and Northern Europe.
“I’m going to do everything possible to see that these razor wire fences at Ceuta and Melilla are removed,” declared interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, in an interview with Spanish radio station Onda Cero reported on Thursday.
“It’s one of my main priorities,” the former judge added.
Mobs of illegal migrants, sometimes over a thousand strong, launch frequent raids on the two cities, which have been governed by Spain for hundreds of years.
They are prized destinations due to the fact they are on European Union soil, and breaking through to them is seen as a shortcut to the welfare states of Western and Northern Europe.
Attempts on Ceuta’s border rose by 71 per cent in 2017, with José Luis Gómez Salinero, Colonel of the city’s Civil Guard Command, warning that his men were being forced to contend with “very young and very physically fit” migrants using “hand-made knives” and willing to resort to “unusual violence” to achieve their aim.
Nearby Melilla faces equally aggressive attacks, with three guards being hospitalised during an assault in May 2017 which saw around a hundred migrants break through.
Ceuta and Melilla, are Spanish territories in North Africa, the EU’s only land borders with Africa, allowing passage from Morocco. An estimated 400 migrants charged the border in the early hours of May 6th, with only six making it across to claim asylum. A city official reported that guards were having to contend with young, physically fit migrants using “hand-made knives” and willing to deploy “unusual violence” to achieve their aim.
The perimeter of the small city on the coast of North Africa, along with its nearby sister city of Melilla, shares the only land border of a European Union member-state with an African nation — namely Morocco — and illegal migrants have long seen it as a shortcut into the wider EU which bypasses the Mediterranean, or more circuitous routes via the Black Sea and Russia.
The Europa Press reports that some 400 migrants charged the city in the early hours of May 6th, with 150 making it past Moroccan security forces to attack its outer fences.
The Spanish authorities told the news outlet that mobile units of the Civil Guard were deployed and a majority of the would-be intruders “repelled”, with just six managing to make it onto EU soil, three of whom were immediately transferred to the local University Hospital to be treated for injuries sustained on the fences.
EU law does not allow member-states to simply detain such migrants and deposit them back on the other side of the border; they must be allowed to lodge an asylum claim, and are typically allowed to roam freely while these are processed.
A 55-year-old man died in Zaragoza on Tuesday night as a result of the beating he received outside a bar last week by a leftist radical who didn’t like the suspenders he was wearing; they were in the colors of the Spanish flag.
The alleged attacker, a 33-year-old member of the Barcelona squatter movement named Rodrigo Lanza, had already served a five-year sentence for assaulting a local police officer in the Catalan capital; that victim has been a quadriplegic since 2006.
This latest assault took place at around 2.30am in the early hours of Friday outside El Tocadiscos, a bar located on Antonio Agustín street, in Zaragoza’s old town district, the local daily Heraldo de Aragón reported.
Víctor Láinez, 55, got into an argument with a group of people inside the bar. He was alone at the time. Witnesses said that the attacker and three other individuals began yelling at Láinez and calling him a “facha,” short for “fascist,” because of the red and yellow stripes on his suspenders.
When Láinez walked out of the bar, two individuals came running after him. Witnesses said that Lanza struck the victim on the head with a metal bar; he and his accomplice then kicked the man several times as he lay unconscious on the ground before running away.
The Spanish central government moved Saturday to invoke a never-before used constitutional article that would strip Catalonia of its autonomous power, calling it a last resort to “restore order.”
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he wants his Senate to give him direct power to dissolve the regional Catalan government and to call an early election as soon as possible. The Senate is likely to approve Rajoy’s request.
Rajoy’s Cabinet met in a special meeting Saturday morning to approve measures to take direct control of the Catalan region under Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution.
Rajoy proposed the powers of Catalan officials be taken over by central government ministers.
The meeting came almost three weeks after a controversial referendum seeking the region’s independence, which was later ruled illegal by the country’s Supreme Court.
Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has argued the referendum result gave him the mandate to move forward with independence.
Located in the northeast region of Spain, Catalonia is largely independent with its own culture and language. It’s one of the richest and most industrialized areas of the country with a heavy emphasis on manufacturing, according to the BBC.
The region, which includes Barcelona, is home to about 7.5 million people.
Valuing its autonomy, Catalonia has its own parliament and executive, called “Generalitat” in its language.
Because of its own cultural identity, those in favor of Catalan independence have pushed for the region to become separate from Spain. Supporters also believe that they have given more to the Spanish government than they have gotten back.
The push for independence “raises questions of the future of democracy and democratic rule,” Pamela Radcliff, a University of California, San Diego professor and modern Spain historian, told Fox News. “What’s being contested between Spain and Catalonia, one of the things is different visions of what defending democracy looks like.”
The push for independence is led by Puigdemont, the president of Catalonia. The region held a referendum on Oct. 1.
About 90 percent of the 2.3 million people who cast votes chose independence, Catalan officials said of the disputed referendum. However, fewer than half of eligible voters participated.
As reported previously, in a sternly worded address to the nation, Spain’s King Felipe VI condemned organizers of Catalonia’s independence referendum for having put themselves “outside the law” and said the situation in Spain was “extremely serious”, calling for unity. In his address, King Felipe VI said Catalan leaders who organized the referendum showed their “disrespect to the powers of the state” adding that “they have broken the democratic principles of the rule of law.
“Today, the Catalan society is fractured,” the king said, warning that the poll could put at risk the economy of the wealthy autonomous north-eastern region and the whole of Spain. He said that Catalonia’s authorities, “have placed themselves outside the law and democracy, they have tried to break the unity of Spain and national sovereignty”. Offering firm backing to the Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy, Felipe said it was the “responsibility of the legitimate powers of the state to ensure the constitutional order.”
Felipe also said the Catalan government had “systematically violated the law, demonstrating a disloyalty that is inadmissible” and “undermined the harmony and coexistence in Catalan society”
But he stressed that Spain “will overcome difficult times”.
The address came on the same day as Barcelona’s roadways were blockaded amid a general strike as hundreds of thousands in Catalonia have been protesting over Spanish police violence during Sunday’s vote, in which nearly 900 people were hurt.
However, despite the King’s warning and hinting that a showdown, potentially violent, is coming, Catalan President Carles Puigdemont told the BBC the region will declare independence in a matter of days. In his first interview since the referendum, Carles Puigdemont said his government would “act at the end of this week or the beginning of next”.
When asked what he would do if the Spanish government were to intervene and take control of Catalonia’s government, Puigdemont said it would be “an error which changes everything”.
As Bloomberg reported earlier, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has been fighting to maintain control after 2.3 million Catalans voted in Sunday’s makeshift referendum and the regional police force ignored orders to prevent the ballot. Preparing for launching the “nuclear option”, Bloomberg added that Rajoy is mulling if, and when, to use Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to take direct control from the administration in Barcelona. This is the “error that would change everything” referred to by Puigdemont.
As a reminder, the Spanish government in Madrid has described the referendum as illegal. During the vote, 33 police officers were also injured, local medical officials said.
Meanwhile, as noted this morning, huge protest rallies have been taking place across Catalonia. In Barcelona alone, 700,000 people took to the streets, city police were quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
Catalonia: 90% of voters said “yes” to independence from Spain. Catalonia has 5.34 million voters; the Catalan government reported that out of the 2,262,424 ballots that were not seized, 2,020,144 were YES votes, 176,566 were NO votes, 45,586 were blank, and 20,129 were null votes. The Spanish government’s massive police crackdown “prevented” an estimated 770,000 people from voting. So far, 844 people have reported injuries from police brutality during the vote, and 74 have already filed official complaints. Spain’s Prime Minister announced that “no referendum” took place in the country, claiming the majority of Catalans “obeyed the law” and did not want to participate in the independence vote after Madrid branded it illegal.
Efforts by Madrid to stop a Catalonia independence vote, currently slated for October 1st, seem to be growing more hostile by the day. Earlier this week Spanish police seized control of Catalonia’s finances, seeking to ensure that separatist politicians could not spend further public funds on the referendum, and conducted raids across Catalonia to confiscate ballots and campaign materials from printing shops and delivery companies.
Now, as the New York Times notes this morning, Spanish police have detained 14 people during operations conducted yesterday which included the secretary general of economic affairs, Josep Maria Jové.
The Spanish police detained more than a dozen people in the region of Catalonia on Wednesday, drastically escalating tensions between the national government and Catalan separatists. The episode occurred less than two weeks before a highly contentious referendum on independence that the government in Madrid has vowed to block.
The police raided the offices of the Catalan regional government early Wednesday and arrested at least 14 people, including Josep Maria Jové, secretary general of economic affairs. The arrests were not expected, but hundreds of mayors and other officials in Catalonia had been warned that they would be indicted if they helped organize a referendum in violation of Spanish law.
Hundreds of supporters of Catalan independence immediately took to the streets of Barcelona to protest the arrests. Jordi Sanchez, the leader of one of the region’s biggest separatist associations, used Twitter to urge Catalans to “resist peacefully,” but also to “come out and defend our institutions.”
According to Reuters, the increasingly hostile crackdown by the Spanish police has led Catalan leaders to acknowledge for the first time today that plans to hold a referendum on independence are now in doubt following the arrest of senior regional officials and the seizure of campaign material by national police.