Drowned the day her visa came through: the tragedy of a Moroccan footballer trying to reach Ceuta

Drowned the day her visa came through: the tragedy of a Moroccan footballer trying to reach Ceuta

Struggling on her meagre pay, Faten Ben Omar El Azizi dreamed of reaching Europe. Then she joined thousands trying to reach a better life in Spain Football was the life Faten Ben Omar El Azizi had wanted. She had long played in Morocco’s regional league for Maghreb Atlético Tetuán, whose striking kit replicates the colours of the famous Spanish club Atlético Madrid. And in the cruellest of ironies, on the day that she drowned last month, one of nearly 150 people who died in the illegal mass crossing into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, her mother was told that her daughter had just been granted a visa to go to Spain. Continue reading...