Spain’s health minister has said she hopes all migrants still sleeping rough in Ceuta will be moved into accommodation within the next two to three weeks.

Monica Garcia said around 3,800 people have already been housed, with another 1,000 places expected to become available over the coming week following an agreement between the central government and authorities in Ceuta.

Thousands remain in the Spanish enclave following the unprecedented mass crossing from Morocco on July 30 and 31, which sparked a major humanitarian, security and political crisis.

Speaking to elDiario.es, Garcia said providing accommodation must come before authorities can properly process individual cases.

‘Without rehousing, there is nothing else,’ she said, arguing it was impossible to properly identify people, process family reunifications or carry out epidemiological assessments while they were living on beaches.

She said she hoped that ‘in the next two or three weeks’ the authorities would have resolved the immediate problem of providing people with shelter, water and dignified conditions.

Garcia also criticised the Ceuta administration’s handling of the first weeks of the crisis, accusing it of displaying an ‘attitude of neglect’ because it had been ‘playing the expulsion card’.

The minister said Madrid could not provide accommodation quickly without Ceuta agreeing to make suitable sites available.

However, she said there had since been a ‘change of attitude’ from the local government, which was now cooperating and offering safe locations for migrants to be housed.

Garcia contrasted the response with the 2021 migration crisis, when she said around 8,000 people were moved off the streets more quickly using facilities including sports centres.

The minister also defended the Government against accusations that it had been too slow to return migrants to Morocco.

‘We will never carry out illegal expulsions or expulsions that violate human rights,’ she said.

Garcia branded the mass crossing an ‘attack on Spanish sovereignty’ and linked it to an alleged attempt to destabilise the Government.

She also said Morocco bears ‘a responsibility’ for what happened and claimed the unrest had connections to an international shift towards the far right, referencing figures including Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.