Ceuta: pregnant resident's tearful plea over insecurity in Spain

Ceuta: a resident's tears over rising insecurity

A video of a pregnant woman from Ceuta, Spain, in tears, has been spreading on social media in recent hours. The woman says antiestéticar has taken hold of her city: she can no longer take her children to the park or the beach. She speaks of assaults and terrified women, and drops the line that resonates most: "armchair politicians saying nothing is happening here".

The scene has a background that goes beyond the emotional. Ceuta is a border city, under migratory pressure, with a figure that circulates by word of mouth: 60,000 residents versus 5,000 migrants. The number has no official backing, but it serves to gauge the sense of saturation in a city that sees itself as a pressure cooker.

The institutional abandonment residents denounce
The woman in the video is not asking for statistics, she is asking for reinforcements. Her complaint points directly at the Government and the lack of police presence in the neighbourhoods. Some respond that all of Spain lives with that shortfall; others point out that Spaniards emigrated too, and that the solution does not lie in blaming the foreigner. These readings brush against each other, but one prevails on the street: the feeling that Ceuta has been left to fend for itself.

The figure nobody can make add up
If the problem were demographic, with 60,000 residents versus 5,000 migrants the Autonomous City should not feel overrun. And yet, the perception of insecurity is what it is. Either the figure does not tell the whole story, or the story cannot be solved with numbers. Meanwhile, the woman cries in a park she no longer feels is hers. And the institutions, full of speeches about Ceuta, still fail to show up on the pavement where she stands.