At least 57 migrants died this week in drownings and a stampede at a breakwater fence as tens of thousands attempted to cross from Morocco into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, the largest single-day surge of irregular arrivals ever recorded on European Union territory, according to regional and national authorities.
Ceuta’s regional president, Juan Jesus Vivas, told reporters Friday that as many as 60,000 people had crossed by land and sea over the preceding two days into a territory with a resident population of roughly 80,000. Spain’s Interior Ministry put the total closer to 50,000 and said an estimated 37,500 had already turned back to Morocco voluntarily by Friday evening, with the figure rising through the day as authorities accelerated returns. Rachid Sbihi, who leads a local Civil Guard workers’ association in Ceuta, described a “serious humanitarian crisis,” saying thousands of migrants, including unaccompanied children, had been left sleeping on sidewalks and in parks without access to food or shelter. Many of the dead drowned attempting to swim the roughly three miles from the Moroccan town of Fnideq; others were killed in a crush of people trying to scale a breakwater barrier near the Tarajal border crossing.
Spanish officials pointed to a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court earlier this month, which found that migrants intercepted at sea while attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily turned back at the border, as one possible factor behind the timing of the surge. Territorial Policy Minister Angel Victor Torres raised the ruling as a contributing element, though legal experts have said the decision does not by itself prevent the eventual expulsion of those who arrive by boat. Spain’s Guardia Civil police association separately said in a social media post that too few officers had been stationed along the fence to contain Thursday’s rush.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez traveled to Ceuta on Friday, where he was met by jeering protesters, and called the crossing “a violation of Spain’s territorial sovereignty,” saying repatriations were being accelerated with Moroccan cooperation. Moroccan security forces used tear gas, water cannon and warning shots to hold back crowds massed at the border gates near Fnideq, where the burned wreckage of a bus and several cars from earlier clashes remained visible Friday. The scale of this week’s crossing exceeded a comparable 2021 episode, when roughly 10,000 people entered Ceuta over a similar period.
The episode has opened divisions among European governments already split over migration policy. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said her government was prepared “to intervene with extraordinary measures to defend the borders,” including suspending Spain’s participation in the passport-free Schengen travel zone, and Rome imposed checks on flights and maritime transport from Spain on Friday. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Spain’s decision to grant legal residency to hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants earlier this year had “encouraged human trafficking,” prompting Madrid to summon Italy’s ambassador in protest. France’s interior ministry said it was stepping up checks at its own border with Spain, though it gave no further detail on how procedures would change; Paris holds a waiver, renewed every six months since 2015, permitting such checks under Schengen’s exceptional-circumstances provision.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the scenes from Ceuta “unacceptable” and said two commissioners had been assigned to help coordinate a response with Spain and Morocco, including additional support through the EU’s Frontex border agency. EU officials briefing reporters on condition of anonymity stressed that the crisis was confined to Ceuta, on the African continent, and that no migrants had reached EU soil on mainland Europe.
The political reaction extended beyond Europe. U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime critic of Sanchez’s Socialist-led government, told Fox News the scenes in Ceuta previewed what could happen in the United States “in three years if the wrong side gets in,” an apparent reference to the next American presidential election. Morocco’s ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, said the situation had unfolded against her government’s wishes and that Rabat had “always prioritized legal, orderly and safe migration for all,” without addressing what had prompted the surge.
By Friday evening, Spanish military vehicles lined sections of the border as migrants who had not managed to cross watched from a hilltop on the Moroccan side. Some of those who returned cited hunger and lack of shelter in Ceuta as reasons for turning back, while smaller groups continued moving along the coastline in search of alternate routes around the fence.
