"I have to travel light, this stays here," said Ali, from Iraq, as he left a supermarket bag on El Trampolín beach this Friday containing the belongings he had accumulated over nearly 50 days. It was not yet six in the morning, and he, like several hundred other migrants, was waiting to be transferred to the reception center at the Port of Ceuta. No trace of sleep, only hope. "I know they delayed it for political reasons, but I've been ready every night; it has to be today," he said. No one had officially informed them, but the incessant rumor meant that, before the operation was even deployed, a crowd of men was already waiting, growing impatient, when no officers appeared in the pitch-black night.
They knew little, but they knew the essential: there would not be room for everyone. So around half past six, the migrants sleeping on the beaches of Benítez and El Trampolín began gathering on the promenade, forming an increasingly compact mass of people struggling not to be left behind. For an hour, more and more kept joining, moving forward by sheer inertia and something else: the new facility was a kilometer in that direction. A handful of Civil Guard patrols tried to hold them back, without success. "I have to get in, please," screamed Ayman, leaning on two mismatched crutches. And before seven o'clock struck or any police unit appeared, a stampede broke out on the promenade, with migrants trying to force their way through, running in panic. Traffic had not yet been cut off, and several vehicles were caught in the chaos.
The Police Intervention Units arrived in the area amid the surge, and tense scenes unfolded as officers attempted to regain control. After extending the cordon, they chose not to begin the operation at the original point and instead organized the migrants from that position onward. Behind them, a trail of shoes and sandals already carpeted the road, remnants of the stampede.
"Calm down, we are going to organize you into groups from here," one of those in charge of the transfer shouted through a megaphone, in Darija. Migrants pressed against the police vehicles, on the verge of a crush, until shots fired into the air broke what remained of the night. Several people were injured, though none seriously. After that, a slower pace prevailed, and officers began separating them in groups of two hundred, seating them on the ground in sections spaced about fifty meters apart. Oussama, Ayoub, and Mohamed embraced in the third group, wrapped in blankets. "We're going to get in!" they cheered, calculating how many people were ahead of them. "I'm very happy, I have big dreams," said Oussama. In the group behind, the coordinator of one of the organizations that will run the new camp spotted two twins, both minors. "You can't, this is for adults," she told them. And she removed them from the line. In the group behind, someone hoisted an enormous pole bearing a tiny Spanish flag.
**The return to the beach**
As soon as they caught sight of the enormous white tents, the migrants burst into applause. After several hours of what was at times a chaotic transfer, the first arrivals entered the temporary reception center, still surrounded by cranes and excavators. In the coming days, an additional tent is expected to be completed, but for the time being the adjoining ones were gradually being filled. In total, just over 1,700 places. Many were asking whether there were blankets inside or whether they had to keep the ones they had brought, and a mountain of warm clothing was growing outside as the bunk beds filled up. True to form, a sign lying on the ground read in Spanish, French and Arabic: "Full." It was placed at the doors at around 11 in the morning.
At that hour, Benítez beach and El Trampolín beach offered the same image as the previous 49 days, but bathed in despair. Under an unrelenting sun, thousands of migrants sensed that their chance had passed, and that they would not be sleeping at the center that night. No one told them as much, but when rows of people appeared walking back along the promenade, they knew.
"I fell asleep; by the time I woke up, they were already far ahead — I didn't know it would start so soon," Brahim lamented. Beside him, Zakaria was trying to make sense of what had happened: "So those of us who didn't get in — are they going to send us back to Morocco?" he asked. Abderrahman was resting on the beach steps, rubbing his leg. "I couldn't run fast enough. I was near the front, but I'm not that quick. I fell behind, and it was survival of the fittest," he said.
Next to him, leaning against the railing facing the sea, a group of about ten minors watched the return to the shanties: "They caught us — we were going to sneak in, but they saw we weren't the right age," said a boy of around 14. "And how long do we have to wait now? Because when we go to the police station they keep telling us there's no room in the places for minors. I'm tired of sleeping on the street," he asked of anyone who might have answers.
And at the far end of the beach, at Trampolín, Jalid was brooding over his regret. He had decided to enter the Port camp and had stayed up all night to get ready. He had dismantled his tent, thrown away the cardboard and given away a metal chair where he used to spend his hours. He knew he was not eligible for asylum and that in all likelihood the move to the reception center would probably mean expulsion to Morocco once everyone was identified. "But I needed a shower, a bed, after so long. So I decided to go in and think about what to do once I was there. Maybe they'd take a while to throw us out, and I could find another way out — get on a boat to the mainland," he said. But everything changed at 6:57 a.m., the moment he received a voice message from another migrant who had moved ahead in the stampede. He played it aloud: "Don't come, they're going to expel us all to Morocco as soon as we get in," the man said, agitated. Jalid listened and stepped out of the line. Now he receives those who were left outside and joins in their despondency. "It's hard to know what's true and what isn't. I'll keep waiting," he said.
