At the port, tents operated by the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID) were part of emergency accommodation for people who arrived in Ceuta on 30 and 31 July. At least 72,000 Moroccan and sub-Saharan migrants were reported to have tried to cross into the Spanish enclave during those two days. Around 1,700 people were housed in the port area during that crisis.
Spain’s National Police began clearing the site at 6am on 8 November, moving residents by bus to the Centro de Atención Temporal de Extranjeros (CATE) near the El Tarajal crossing. All 50 tents on the Poniente quay were emptied. Officers from police intervention units and Ceuta’s police headquarters took part, while surveillance drones monitored the operation. The clearance marked the first step in the gradual closure of seven temporary facilities established after the July arrivals. Other sites remained open.
At the El Tarajal facilities, officers checked the administrative status of those transferred. They included asylum applicants whose claims had been refused and people still awaiting decisions. Some chose to return voluntarily to Morocco. Officials established each person’s status before arranging transfers to other facilities or starting the applicable administrative procedure.
Those who opted to leave were taken through a side gate to a crossing in the fence separating Ceuta from Morocco, where Moroccan security forces, including the Royal Gendarmerie, received them. This voluntary process is separate from return or expulsion files that may be pursued against other people. A Guardia Civil estimate reported on 6 November put the number of people who had returned to Morocco in the 99 days after the mass entry at 88,146. A separate Barcelona migrant-network case concerned alleged sham job arrangements, not this accommodation and transfer operation.
The Government of Spain confirmed that all 50 tents had been cleared and said the area would be cleaned before the installations were dismantled. The government plans to close emergency sites gradually as it processes international-protection applications and consolidates residents in other facilities. More than 3,000 people had previously been reported at the separate Trampolín Beach encampment before authorities cleared it on 4 and 5 October.
The port site had been contentious because it occupied land controlled by the Port Authority of Ceuta. The authority’s board voted against transferring the land for the settlement, but the Ministry of Transport ultimately ordered its use for emergency accommodation. The site was in the port’s expansion area, where urban-development work was scheduled for the coming months. The Government had also planned to move residents from other temporary sites into facilities with available places. Many residents’ protection applications remained unresolved.
