The silent dramas of Moroccans trapped for more than six months in Ceuta and Melilla

Moroccan women blocked in Ceuta due to the pandemic return to their country through a humanitarian corridor on Wednesday, September 30.ANTONIO SEMPERE / AFP

The Moroccan government opened a humanitarian corridor this week in Ceuta and Melilla.

The objective is to return to their country hundreds of nationals trapped for almost seven months in the two autonomous cities, due to the sanitary measures decreed by Rabat.

200 people returned from Melilla on Wednesday and 100 from Ceuta, all women.

Hundreds of others will be leaving between Friday and Sunday.

The photos of those people carrying heavy suitcases, back home, can hardly give an idea of ​​the drama that many of them have experienced.

The case of Mariam, a 37-year-old domestic worker, who was able to leave Ceuta on Wednesday is one of the most fortunate.

“The family I worked with has welcomed me all this time,” he explained on Wednesday by phone, recently arrived in the Moroccan city of Castillejos (Fnideq).

They have treated me like a queen.

But it's been too long and I couldn't take it anymore, I needed to see my family. "

Ceuta merchant Sabah Hamed, 59, comments: “It is said early: half a year blocked.

But behind all that time, which has actually been almost seven months, there is a lot of suffering ”.

She and her friend Leila decided to help from the first moment, in cooperation with the Government delegation and the Red Cross.

“The day they closed the border [on March 13],” says Sabah Hamed, “everyone thought that this was going to take a few hours.

But night was falling and I couldn't sleep knowing that all those people were out in the open, in the rain.

We made an appeal to the people of Ceuta and it was incredible how they responded, both Muslims and non-Muslim Spaniards.

Many of those who were trapped came with practically nothing.

No money for a taxi.

It was necessary to provide them with everything: clothes, food, bath gel, shaving cream ... Be careful: there were also those who fired the employees who were working in their homes.

And those poor women saw each other on the street overnight.

And there are also those who have continued to pay their Moroccan employees, although the closure has caught them in Morocco and they are not working here ”.

While Sabah Hamed is talking on the phone, a 64-year-old Moroccan woman interrupts her to ask her in Dariya, the local Arabic: “Am I not going out?

Won't they let me out? "

The lady explains that she has her husband in Castillejos, on the other side of the border, alone and with Alzheimer's.

"And when she goes out she doesn't know how to come home," says the crying woman.

"As these cases we have known many", explains Hamed.

Hamed tells the case of a woman who is undergoing chemotherapy, who would like to leave because she is in a very bad phase.

"There is not much you can do for her anymore and she would like to be with her family."

He also speaks of a bricklayer who has his wife in Morocco with cancer;

of a lady who was blocked with her autistic daughter, 23, and they were able to return this Wednesday;

of another woman who has her paralyzed daughter in Morocco ...

And later, there have been at least two women who have given birth in Ceuta: Noura Lamarti and Laila El Fadda, both from Tetuán, aged 29 and 31.

Laila, told the newspaper

, that she arrived with her sister in Ceuta to buy clothes and the delivery was ahead of her.

She was admitted to the hospital for ten days.

"She had had four miscarriages before and this was the first child to be born well," recalls Sabah Hamed.

"When she was discharged, she did not find a place to go, a woman saw her crying in the street and welcomed her into her home during all this time."

On Wednesday Lamarti and El Fadda returned to Morocco.

Less lucky people

There are other people who were not so lucky.

The Government of Melilla welcomed dozens of Moroccans in the bullring.

A 37-year-old woman died in May in circumstances not yet clarified.

The following day, Morocco opened for the first time a humanitarian corridor from Melilla through which several hundred people were able to return.

They also did it from Ceuta.

But the hallway was closed.

And the dramas continued.

Zubaida, a 45-year-old Moroccan from Tetouan, also remained in Ceuta, who learned on May 30 that her 23-year-old daughter had died of sudden death.

She was unable to attend the funeral.

Dozens of Moroccans tried to return to Morocco by swimming or by boats bought at the Decathlon.

“The rowing boats were sold out at the Decathlon,” says Sabah Hamed.

And among those who returned to swim, is Amal, the mother of a baby from Tetouan who traveled to the peninsula to have her son treated for leukemia in Cádiz.

The child died and the mother buried him on May 7 in the Sidi Embarek cemetery, in Ceuta, because he could not cross the border.

She saw herself alone, without the warmth of her family, and on August 25 she jumped into the sea in the direction of Castillejos.

There are also many, both in Ceuta and Melilla, who do not intend to return to Morocco.

That is the case of Latifah, who explains from Melilla that her husband intends to return to Morocco, but she does not want to do so "not even as a joke."

“I stay with my children, who are studying here.

My husband has stood still and is looking forward to going back.

But I have a part-time job and I'm going to stay ”.

Among the images that have been recorded in Sabah Hamed's retina, there is that of some old women between 70 and 80 years old who had been sleeping for months in hammocks on the beach, inside some ships.

“Spain has already done enough to help all those who were blocked.

But Morocco ... What less than they had removed these older women? "