MADRID, AUG 1: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez denounced on Saturday the “selfish” attitude of some EU countries in their response to a migrant crisis at Spain’s enclave of Ceuta, demanding ministerial-level talks.
“In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarizing and unlawful reaction,” he wrote in a letter addressed to the heads of the bloc, seen by AFP, which also called for a meeting of its 27 members’ interior ministers.
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At least 67 people died in the migrant crossing from Morocco to Ceuta, Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters on Saturday.
Most of the migrants had returned by Saturday back to Morocco after tens of thousands crossed over the border, most by swimming around the small frontier post that juts into the Mediterranean Sea.
A majority of EU countries called on Saturday for emergency talks on the sudden inflow of tens of thousands of migrants into Spain’s enclave of Ceuta in North Africa.
An open letter from the leaders of 22 of the EU’s 27 countries demanded the bloc’s interior ministers have a video meeting ‘as a matter of urgency’ to agree a speedy coordinated response, and to “prevent further uncontrolled crossings.”
