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Spain was stunned by one of the biggest influxes of unauthorised migrants in EU history, with officials estimating that at least 49,000 people entered Ceuta on Thursday — more than half the population of the North African enclave.
The unprecedented wave of immigrants, most of whom swam around a breakwater from Morocco to reach a Ceuta beach, overwhelmed Spanish police, forced the deployment of the army and triggered condemnation from rightwing European politicians.
The figure is nearly five times the daily peak of the 2015 migration crisis, when hundreds of thousands of refugees entered Europe via Turkey, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan. At the height of that crisis, about 10,000 people a day crossed by land or in dinghies to the Greek islands.
The national security department in the Spanish prime minister’s office said “more than 49,000” people had streamed into Ceuta in an online statement that was posted at 8am on Friday, then taken down. It said the Spanish security forces had recovered the bodies of 19 people from the water.
The influx in the tiny coastal enclave, which has a population of about 83,000 and is hemmed in by Morocco, led analysts to suggest that the Moroccan authorities had deliberately enabled the stream of migrants.
Ceuta and Spain’s other North African enclave, Melilla, are longstanding sources of tension with Morocco.
Analysts see the threat of migrants overwhelming Spain’s enclaves — by land or sea — as a key source of Rabat’s leverage over Madrid. Thousands of people stormed Ceuta in 2021 after a diplomatic rift between Spain and Morocco over western Sahara, a territory claimed by Rabat.
The migrants on Thursday were mostly young Moroccan men, but included women, children and non-Moroccans. More people tried to climb over fences to get into Ceuta on Friday morning, sparking violent clashes with Spanish police.
But thousands of others began to return to Morocco, having been told they would not be granted permission to remain on Spanish territory, the national news agency EFE reported.
The Spanish government said Spain and Morocco had agreed to “strengthen co-ordination and review measures to enable the return, as soon as possible, of people who have entered Ceuta irregularly”.
Spain blamed the situation on “people-smuggling networks”, saying they were exploiting a Supreme Court decision this month that stops the authorities from intercepting and sending back migrants who arrive in Ceuta and Melilla by sea.
Analysts, however, saw other factors at play. Riccardo Fabiani, north Africa director of the International Crisis Group, said it was possible Morocco was seeking to punish Spain for building bridges with Algeria, Morocco’s arch-rival, after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a “new phase” in relations on a visit to Algiers 11 days ago.
Rightwing leaders across Europe seized on the episode to attack Spain’s handling of the crisis.
Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, said France should reinforce controls on its borders in response to the “massive and co-ordinated” entry of migrants into Spain, which she claimed had been encouraged by the Spanish government. She added that if elected as president in 2027, she would push for restricting free movement in the border-free Schengen area to EU nationals.
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage claimed that many of those young men, “lots of them dangerous”, would be heading towards Calais and Britain soon. “It is time to wake up. This is a battle for the future of our civilisation,” he said in a video posted on X.
People in Ceuta are subject to further border checks if they seek to travel to the Spanish mainland.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has prioritised a crackdown on unauthorised immigration, called for “extraordinary measures” in response on Thursday, including the potential suspension of Spain from Schengen, although it was unclear how that could be implemented.
A similar sentiment was echoed by the leader of Sweden’s most popular rightwing party — the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats — who said the scenes showed Schengen was close to collapsing.
“This is nothing less than an invasion,” Jimmie Åkesson said on Friday. “Spain must immediately close its borders. If they don’t, the country should be excluded from Schengen and the borders with Spain closed with immediate effect.”
Additional reporting by Richard Milne in Oslo
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