A rally outside a hotel where the leader of a right-wing party was to hold a press conference about the migrant crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta has left several injured, including seven police officers, local media said.
Hundreds rallied outside the hotel where the leader of the right-wing Vox party Santiago Abascal was to address the media on Monday. The protesters pelted law enforcement officers with stones, injuring the city’s police chief. Local media reported that two people were arrested and seven officers were among those hurt during the mayhem.
Authorities said Abascal’s opponents were among the protesters, while several dozen of his supporters were present as well. Rival groups staged their own protests despite a court ban on demonstrations. Police were sent in to disperse the rallies. Abascal had initially planned to hold a rally, but it was canceled by the local government. Instead, he scheduled an indoor press conference.
He arrived in Ceuta days after more than 8,000 migrants crossed into the autonomous city, which is a Spanish enclave bordered by Morocco on the tip of northern Africa. Spanish authorities said 7,500 of the migrants have been sent back to Morocco, while some, mostly minors, remained in the city.
Spanish authorities blamed Morocco for having loosened border controls, which led to the intrusion. Authorities in the Moroccan capital Rabat attributed the situation to exhausted border guards being overwhelmed by the mass influx of migrants taking advantage of fair weather to swim into the bay of Ceuta.
The conflict comes as Morocco and Spain are engaged in another diplomatic spat. Rabat officials were angry that the independence leader of the disputed Western Sahara, Brahim Ghali, had gone to Spain in April for medical treatment. While the UN considers Western Sahara a ‘Non-Self-Governing Territory,’ Rabat claims sovereignty over it.
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