Ceuta Declares Permanent National Emergency, Installs Loudspeaker on Every Corner to Repeat Warnings Moncloa Ignored
After 43 days of migration crisis and a resignation, Ceuta's president Juan Jesús Vivas has ordered the entire city to operate under a state of national emergency indefinitely, with loudspeakers broadcasting his ignored warnings every hour, while Madrid insists it is a summer storm.
CEUTA — The autonomous city of Ceuta has declared a permanent state of national emergency and installed loudspeakers on every street corner to broadcast the warnings that Moncloa previously dismissed as the complaints of a nuisance, officials confirmed Friday.
The decision came after the resignation of Gonzalo Sanz, chief of staff at the Government Delegation, who left his post following reports about the mass entry and his communications with the CNI. In response, Ceuta's president, Juan Jesús Vivas, ordered the immediate construction of a 12-metre-high observation tower at the port, from which a rotating team of municipal employees now shouts «national emergency, single command» through megaphones every fifteen minutes, day and night.
«When I spoke of national emergency in that meeting, they always gave me a dirty look,» Vivas said. «Now the whole city says it for me. We have also purchased 340 loudspeakers, one for each street, and a mobile unit that follows the Government Delegate's car.»
The Government Delegate, Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, has denied knowing about the CNI call and refused to resign. He now conducts all official business from a soundproofed office in the basement of the Delegation, while the loudspeakers outside repeat: «It is a summer storm, everything is under control, Morocco is cooperating.»
By next week, the city council plans to require every resident to carry a small hand-cranked siren and to sound it three times whenever they see a boat. Moncloa has not commented, but a source there described the measure as «a bit much.»
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