MADRID, Spain – A large part of the pneumatic buoy installed on the maritime border at the Tarajal in Ceuta to delimit Spanish waters and reinforce control of attempts at irregular entry by swimming remains deflated in several of its sections, an issue that has recurred frequently since its installation and that is once again visible just one day before the mass entry call circulated on social media for this Wednesday.
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The floating structure, deployed by the Ministry of the Interior in the Tarajal border area, tends to present periodic damage due to punctures and the action of storms and sea currents, which has on various occasions caused the loss of pressure in some of its modules. Indeed, since its placement it has not been unusual to observe several deflated or displaced segments. The installation of this containment element responded to the need to adapt the border operation to the ruling issued by the Supreme Court on 8 July, in which it was declared that border rejections cannot be applied when migrants are intercepted before physically crossing a border containment element by swimming. The buoy was conceived as a visible barrier intended to delimit the maritime border space and facilitate the action of the state security forces against attempts at irregular access by sea.
The spokesman for the Ceuta government, Alejandro Ramírez, said today that the deterioration of the infrastructure was a foreseeable situation given the experience accumulated by the city with similar installations along the coastline. He noted that the buoys installed in the Tarajal area may be of greater volume, but that they are ultimately an installation very similar to what is placed every summer to prevent jellyfish from crossing the beach. According to his explanation, although the Tarajal buoy has larger dimensions, its operation is broadly similar to these, recalling that even those structures, anchored at numerous points to the seabed, tend to be affected by storms and currents.
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Ramírez indicated that the local government already anticipated that episodes of bad weather or strong currents would end up affecting the installation. He also demanded information about the border infrastructure improvement works announced by the central executive with European funding, stating that to date, unfortunately, both in monitoring meetings and publicly, they have still not learned what those actions will be, what they will consist of and, above all, when they will be carried out. He questioned how it is possible that today they do not even know what is going to be done, how it is going to be done or when, particularly if the planned interventions must be processed through the emergency route. The situation of the buoy coincides with the announcement of reinforced surveillance along the Ceuta border perimeter ahead of the mass entry call circulated for this Wednesday, after more than seven weeks marked by unprecedented migratory pressure on the autonomous city.
