Police in Ceuta have arrested and detained three migrants for facilitating illegal immigration, drugging, and rape. The Spanish authorities are struggling to contain a wave of violent crime after more than 100,000 illegal migrants surged into the exclave earlier this year.
Officers raided a property in Ceuta’s Principe neighborhood on Wednesday morning and discovered ten migrants held in cramped conditions inside, according to a statement from Spain’s National Police. Four of those in the building were children, and one migrant told police that she had been drugged and raped, while her brother – also living in the building – was subjected to threats.
All of the migrants entered Ceuta on July 30, as crowds of thousands of North Africans poured across the border fence separating the exclave from Morocco. They lacked legal documents, and had been paying a gang of migrant criminals to live in the building.
Police arrested the alleged ringleader of the gang and detained him on suspicion of sexual assault, belonging to a criminal organization, facilitating illegal immigration, unlawful detention, threats, and coercion. Two other alleged gang members were arrested for maintaining order in the property “through violence and coercive means.”
More than 100,000 migrants flooded into Ceuta in late July and early August, according to the latest figures from the exclave’s regional government. The migrants brought with them a surge in violent crime and sexual offenses. More than 1,300 physical assaults were reported to emergency services from July 30 to September 1, up from 93 the year before; 37 sexual assault cases were opened by Ceuta’s courts from July 30 to September 14, with 14 of them involving minors.
Most of the 100,000 migrants have returned voluntarily to Morocco, although 15,000 remain in Ceuta, according to the regional government.
The Principe neighborhood has emerged as a hotbed of migrant crime. Less than two weeks before Wednesday’s raid, police searched another building in the area and discovered 74 migrants living in cramped conditions under the guard of criminal gangs. Ten of those discovered were unaccompanied minors, some of whom had been bitten by dogs and showed signs of physical assault, according to police.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been condemned by his fellow European leaders for his handling of the crisis, with some accusing him of encouraging migration by granting legal status to 500,000 illegal immigrants three months before the storming of Ceuta. Sanchez described the migrant surge as “an attack” on Spain’s territorial integrity, but defended his decision not to turn the crowds back with force.
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