Disillusioned Youth Abandon Plans to Illegally Cross into Ceuta
On the morning of Saturday, August 15, no significant movements were reported in Fnideq, Morocco, where police had been conducting random checks and arrests the previous day. Many young individuals who had completed the perilous journey by sea to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta two weeks earlier are choosing not to respond to calls urging them to attempt the crossing once more, despite their unyielding dreams of reaching Europe.
Walid, an 18-year-old, expressed his disillusionment, stating, "No, I will not go back because there is no solution for us there. Morocco has demanded that we return, and Spain also wanted to send us away. They are not going to give us papers or passports, nothing at all." Initially encouraged by his mother to participate in a collective crossing on July 30, Walid's hopes quickly turned into a nightmare as, on that fateful day, two of his friends, aged 16 and 18, drowned. "People were clinging to each other in the sea, and that's how they died. It made me sad, disappointed, and depressed."
Despite the traumatic experience, Walid, who is fluent in three languages and was previously an activist in the GenZ 212 movement, has not abandoned his aspirations for a better life in Europe. He yearns for the opportunity to secure a job, earn money, and ultimately make his family proud, lamenting that earning a living in Morocco is virtually impossible. His friend Lyan, a resident of Fnideq, also shares his reluctance to attempt another illegal crossing, having spent fourteen days in Ceuta before deciding to return. "There, I wasn’t eating healthily; I was living off canned food on the streets," he recounted.
Walid expressed his disapproval of the arrests he witnessed on August 14, questioning the legality of detaining minors: "Why arrest children? What is the point of all this?" On that Saturday, police forces were heavily present in Fnideq and along the shoreline, prepared to prevent any attempts to cross into Spanish territory.
As reported by rfi.fr.
