Calamocarro, Dreamed Station

Our neighbours of the African continent undertook a long road in search of the dreamed station that it allowed them to ascend to the train of the European "paradise". In Spain, in one of the beaches of Ceuta "Calamocarro" hundred of Africans, crowded between cardboards and garbage, have waited the moment to be able to ascend to this train. Calamocarro has been for them a dreamed station and wanted. They won't care the inclemency of the dirt and the powder, the solitude and the nostalgia of it; it is part of the note to enter in the "promised land". They are fugitives of the integrism and paramilitary actions; fugitives of the military service, common criminals, university students and upright men that have been able to cross the opposite ceuta secretly, after a long one travelled on foot from Algeria and other countries centroafricans. In Calamocarro they wait, with the dawn of every day, to read their names at least provisionally in the list that grants them, the letter of citizens "certified" to cross the strait. Calamocarro no longer exists. In the Spring of the 2000, some of their residents passed to the Center Of Temporary Stay for immigrants, located to about 4 or 5 kilometers of the camp; other, are now living in the mountains around the city of Ceuta thanks to the help of the Red Cross and some ONG.Without a doubt, been urgent by the terms of the alienating law, they close the quick road of "patera" and maybe, with hundred of their siblings, they have been news in newspapers.

1. A sight of the camp of Calamocarro. April 1999. Situated outside the suburbs of Ceuta, this place shelters almost a thousand of illegal immigrants arrived form all points of the African continent.

2. Immigrants inside a camping tent of the camp of Calamocarro. April 1999, Ceuta. Up to a score of persons can sleep under the same roof.

3. Immigrant opposite to a camping tent in Calamocarro. April 1999. Ceuta. Some camping tents are provided by Civil Protection and by the official authorities of the Government of Ceuta.

4. Mauritanian young man warming water to make some tea. April 1999. Ceuta. For lack of current water, this one is served by Civil Protection in a big vats, and it is gathered by the inhabitants of the camp for his personal use, to do the washing, or cooking.