Reinforced fences in this Spanish city in Morocco are designed to shut a notorious gateway to Europe – but have left a fractured and anxious city

After finishing the couscous and arroz con leche cooked by a semi-clandestine group of local volunteers, the unaccompanied boys disappear into the night as quickly as they appeared. Minutes earlier, when the locals drove along a coastal road edging the fortified medieval city of Melilla, it was hard to imagine that the peaceful-looking cliffs were home to some 60 youngsters. Most of them had crossed over from neighbouring Morocco as stowaways smuggled under vehicles, and are now stuck in limbo in this tiny enclave of Spain in North Africa until they turn 18.

Melilla is one of two Spanish cities in mainland Africa. Like its counterpart Ceuta, it holds a special status as an “autonomous city”. They technically function as mini regional governments, but because they aren’t large enough to be considered regions on their own, the central government manages most of their services and they don’t have legislative power.

Melilla and Ceuta are often seen as a gateway to Europe as migrants struggle to cross over from Africa – many of them fleeing conflict and extreme poverty in sub-Saharan countries, and others increasingly arriving from Syria or Palestine.

If 10 years ago this was Europe’s dirty secret, it is now a known, sometimes celebrated, example of how to fence off migrants – with the EU paying both Spain and Morocco tens of millions of euros yearly to keep its southernmost borders protected.

The fence runs along the seven-mile perimeter of Melilla’s border with Morocco, and it should be all but insurmountable. The initial fence was built in 1998 and it has since been reinforced; it is a triple structure covered in blades, alarms and – currently deactivated – pepper gas.

As with many things in Melilla, the situation of the unaccompanied boys (they are generally boys, as girls’ migration journeys are often invisible and even more dangerous) feels like a twisted new normal that should never have happened. Most have escaped the overcrowded centre for minors in town, where cases of abuse as well as a total lack of legal assistance have been denounced by local human rights organisation Harraga.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Migrant boys along the coast of fortified Melilla. Photograph: Antonio Ruiz

Victims of a legal vacuum until they reach adulthood, the “menas” (an acronym for unaccompanied foreign minor) often try to escape as stowaways on the daily ferry to Málaga, a journey which resulted in three boys dying last year. Others are forced to survive in the streets; reports state 540 menas live in the city, six dozen of them without a home. The number has grown exponentially in the last two years with Europe’s refugee crisis.

Melilla’s image in the collective consciousness is one of fences. Perhaps the most infamous picture is that of a dozen sub-Saharan migrants sitting atop the city’s border fence, taken by local activist José Palazón in 2014. Alongside them is a publicly funded golf course whose oblivious golfers signify Europe’s indifference to the plight of refugees.

When Sanoussy, a tall 20-year-old from Guinea, managed to cross on his sixth attempt, he was lucky not to break any limbs. His journey through Africa included beatings by the Moroccan army and jumping the fearsome fence. “You have five minutes to go through it and jump before you catch the attention of guards on either side,” he explains.

We meet at an eco farm by the border where an environmental organisation and Save the Children are holding a gardening workshop for young migrants. Metres away is the omnipresent fence; as we talk Sanoussy plants lavender in the midday heat, and an Imam calls for prayer in a mosque in the Moroccan town just behind it.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A golfer hits a tee shot as African migrants sit atop a border fence during an attempt to cross into Spanish territories. Photograph: José Palazón/Reuters

Sanoussy is staying at the government-run temporary migrant holding centre (CETI), which is overflowing at twice its capacity hosting a mix of economic migrants and Syrian asylum seekers. He has no idea when – or if – he will be sent to mainland Spain. His hope is to eventually make it to Barcelona, where his brother lives. Aware of the challenges in reaching his dream, he nevertheless seems determined.

The defensive city

Melilla has grown over the centuries around medieval fortifications and military barracks, its main focus always on shielding from different agents– once the Moroccan army, now migrants. Surrounded by the fence and sea, Melilla appears as an isolated pressure cooker. The only ways to the mainland are two expensive flights in terrifyingly small propeller planes, or a five-hour ferry.

Juan José Imbroda of Spain’s conservative People’s Party has been Melilla’s president-mayor for almost 17 years. One of his infamous comments was made in 2014 after border police forces were criticised for their violence against 150 people who had jumped the fence. “If the Civil Guard can’t act,” he said, “how about we put hostesses at the border as a welcoming committee?” His executive holds the dubious honour of having a record number of government members (more than half of them) charged with corruption.

Muslims, Christians, Jews and Hindus all live in the city and, while mixed couples and friendship groups exist, many tell of “co-existing but not mixing”. The city’s government often employs an “us v them” narrative and there seems to be an undercurrent of Islamophobia, with “invasion” discourses and complaints of Muslims’ supposed unwillingness to integrate.

Despite roughly half the population being Muslim and speaking the local Berber language, only one Muslim holiday is official – whereas there are six Christian ones.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Spanish guard patrols the border fence. Photograph: Rafael Marchante/Reuters

Divisions are both cultural and economic in this region. The gap in GDP per capita between both sides of this border is one of the biggest of any border worldwide: the Spanish side is six times wealthier than the Moroccan side –

in America, for instance, the US is three times wealthier than Mexico.

Melilla’s raison d’être is defence

Melilla’s raison d’être is defence. It is home to a huge military base and one of the biggest headquarters of the famously reactionary Spanish Legion, resulting in an enormous proportion of the population being military and other civil servants, who receive attractive benefits and higher salaries than on the mainland. That results in higher rents impossible to afford for many other workers or unemployed people.

The population of 85,000 is expanding every day with visitors from Morocco, so both legal trade – products including milk or nappies are much more expensive in Morocco – and illegal contraband are palpably buzzing. Endless vehicle queues congest the road to the main border entry point for kilometres every day.

Crossing the border

Life at the city’s three border crossings becomes frantic during the early hours of weekday mornings. At Barrio Chino, the pedestrian crossing, hundreds of Moroccan women known as porteadoras (“mule women”) run to the Spanish side where trucks and lorries wait packed with goods. The race is then on to fill their immense bags and carry them on their backs – spectacularly hunched over by the weight – back to Morocco. They are often paid two or three euros per journey, so the women have to make as many trips as possible in a short time.

Kamaria, a mother in her 40s who lives in the nearby Moroccan city of Nador, crosses over twice a day with her three children who attend school in Melilla. Her husband doesn’t work, and “whatever money he gets his hands on, he spends on cigarettes”, she says. Many Moroccan women are employed in Melilla as domestic workers and get paid salaries that make it impossible to live in the city, where rents average €600 a month. To avoid being run over by the human avalanche at the border, Kamaria and her kids wait in line from 6.30am.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A migrant runs towards the temporary holding centre (CETI) after scaling Melilla’s border fence with Morocco. Photograph: Santi Palacios/AP

“Unless you’re there early you might not cross – or you might get killed,” she says, visibly exhausted. She then spends her days looking for work in the city. Despite having extensive experience in the catering industry, she has only been able to find a cleaning job one day a week, which pays €25 at most. Hayat, another Moroccan woman who crosses the border daily, is a cook but can’t find work either. “Without connections, you don’t get a job here,” she laments.

The crossing is a frustrating procedure for citizens of Melilla and nearby Nador, both of which don’t need passport stamps. While it used to be a formality that was part of daily life, it is now best avoided unless necessary. “We would go to Morocco to play all the time,” recalls María Jesús, a Melilla-born high school Latin teacher. “Now, you feel trapped.”

A fenced future

With President Trump determined to build a wall between the US and Mexico, and anti-immigration discourses rising across Europe, Melilla is a warning sign that a world of walls and fences does nothing to solve the urgent problems behind the refugee crisis, and the inequality driving immigration.

The priority of Melilla’s government – which didn’t respond the Guardian’s requests for comment – continues to be to stop illegal immigration. For many residents and workers, it is to survive and scramble to afford rent; whereas for migrants, in the absence of a safe passage, it’s to do whatever it takes to escape horror or economic misery.

The future of the US-Mexican border: inside the 'split city' of El Paso-Juárez Read more

Melilla’s people are warm and welcoming, but it’s hard for this pocket of Spain not to make a bitter, suffocating first impression. Like other territorial enclaves in foreign lands – not least Gibraltar – it feels out of time and place, its identity splintered and conflicted. Melilla’s mass of military buildings is peppered with the fascist memorabilia which has been mostly removed from mainland Spain. The statue of Franco, who started the insurrection in this city that would lead to the Spanish Civil War, doesn’t feel at odds here.

One Saturday afternoon, I meet a local lawyer who advises undocumented immigrants. A serene man in his 60s, he talks about the human rights violations in the treatment of migrants and the apathy of many Melillans.

I ask if he sees any hope for the future. “Oh, none whatsoever,” he replies starkly. The manyfold problems of this city are too entrenched, he thinks, and something has disappeared in the soul of a place that no longer sees the full humanity in others – even in lost boys.

Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join the discussion, and explore our archive here