Spain has returned more than a dozen migrants from Africa and Asia to Morocco after they reached the Ceuta enclave and were refused asylum.
This is the first such deportation from the enclave since the mass border crossing in July, Reuters reports.
Spain’s Interior Ministry said it expelled the group after Morocco agreed to take them back. They are now on Moroccan territory. The ministry declined to give the exact number and nationalities of those deported, but charities and human rights organisations in Ceuta reported 16 people from Senegal, Nigeria, Yemen, Cameroon and Bangladesh.
A spokesperson for Spain’s Interior Ministry said the European Union considers Morocco a safe country, so deportations are carried out with all necessary safeguards.
Spain has currently placed 8,000 migrants in reception centres and is reviewing asylum applications from most of those who remain in Ceuta.
Meanwhile, several non-governmental organisations, including Amnesty International, have filed a complaint with Spain’s ombudsman. They say that some of the more than 13,000 people who, according to the government, have voluntarily returned to Morocco since mid-August, in fact left the country under duress.
- It was previously reported that Spain plans to move away from standard migration procedures and tighten the rules for submitting asylum applications for migrants who arrived in its North African enclave of Ceuta during the mass border crossing in July.