Thursday, December 26

‘All of Africa Is Here’: Where Europe’s Southern Border Is Just a Fence

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NYT

A view of Jebel Musa, a mountain in Morocco that towers over the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Ksenia Kuleshova for The New York Times.

CEUTA, Spain — For most migrants from Africa, the last stage of their trip to Europe involves some sort of perilous sea crossing. At the border in Ceuta, there is just a fence.

Ceuta (pronounced say-YOU-tah) is one of the two Spanish communities on the north coast of what otherwise would be Morocco, the only places where Europe has land borders with Africa. The other enclave is Melilla, farther east along the same coast.

Here, all that separates Europe from migrants is a double fence, 20 feet high and topped with barbed wire, stretching the four miles across the peninsula and dividing tiny Ceuta from Morocco — plus 1,100 Spanish federal police and Guardia Civil officers, a paramilitary police force.

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