Ceuta: Pedro Sánchez gives his first interview since the migratory crisis and points against Russia, Israel and the “far-right international”

“There was an expansion of disinformation on the part of social networks, associated with both Russia and Israel, and a far-right international that always use migration, not only to attack Spain but also Europe and divide it,” Sánchez said this Monday, in a radio interview he gave to Cadena Ser.

“The European External Action Service of the European Commission has said that, indeed, there were Russian and Israeli networks that spread these hoaxes and that attacked the government of Spain and European governments on a very corrosive issue such as the fight against irregular migration that divides, fractures and polarizes many European societies today,” Sánchez insisted.

And he added: “It is evident that if Russia starts to misinform on this issue or Israel also misinforms on this issue by criticizing the government of Spain, it will not be because it is concerned about migration in Spain or in Europe, but precisely because the political positions we are holdingI think they are brave, respect to the genocide in Gaza or regarding the Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”

“He lied again, astonishingly accusing Israel of spreading misleading information regarding the events in Ceuta,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar retorted this Monday.

“Continuing to spread defamatory lies will not distract from shameful incapacity of Sánchez to manage the affairs of his country,” Saar expressed on his social networks.

“What we know, until now, is that a Supreme Court ruling from July 8 was distorted, which was spread by social networks through hoaxes, misinformation, also by criminal organizations that deal with human beings, saying that what that Supreme Court ruling said was that if you entered the autonomous city of Ceuta by swimming, for example, return at the border was impossible. Which is not true,” stressed the president of the government.

The last time Sánchez referred to the issue was on July 31, when he traveled to Ceuta and, from there, he defined the massive entry of foreigners as a “violation and attack on the territorial integrity” of Spain.

At that time, the Spanish president blamed “the mafia networks that traffic in human beings and has produced an avalanche.”

Since then, Sánchez disassociates the role of Morocco at the entrance of immigrants who overflowed Ceuta.

“There is no information, from either the State security forces and bodies or the National Intelligence Center or any intelligence center with which the Spanish government usually collaborates, that raises any doubt about the participation in one form or another by the Moroccan authorities,” he noted.

The president of the government of Spain He admitted not knowing exactly what happened. on July 30 and 31: “Unfortunately (that knowledge) we do not have it -said Sánchez-. We continue investigating it, but what is certain is that the government has to act on certainties, and above all what we have to do is work to minimize the present and future risks of assaults like these.”

Most of the people who entered Spanish territory did so, according to the head of the progressive government, “for economic reasons, not humanitarian ones.”

“And they will very likely return to Morocco,” predicts Sánchez who, during the interview, highlighted that 9 out of every 10 immigrants who entered Ceuta illegally returned from where they left “voluntarily.”

“There would be around 5,000 people leftof which 1,200 are minors unaccompanied,” listed the Spanish president.

The State Attorney General’s Office reported this Monday that 23 immigrant teenagers – nine of whom are between 14 and 17 years old – suffered sexual attacks since they arrived in Ceuta.

Eight of the suspects were identified: four Moroccan men, three Spaniards and one Belgian.

In Ceuta, the autonomous city whose border Pedro Sánchez defined this Monday as “probably the most complex in the world”, along with that of Melilla – the other Spanish territory in Africa -, tension is growing.

Neighbors take to the streets to protest the presence of foreigners wandering through their neighborhoods and, this Monday, the National Police had to disperse a group of immigrants who were trying to force their way into one of the improvised settlements to assist the migrants with shots in the air.

More than 200 people among those who entered Ceuta en masse were expelled for committing crimes in the autonomous city.

The Minister of Territorial Policy and head of the single command created to manage the migration crisis, Angel Víctor Torres, pointed out that three of the expelled immigrants had antecedents for jihadism.