Some drowned and others got caught up in crush, official says, as incident prompts criticism by other EU nations
At least 34 people have died trying to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta after more than 40,000 migrants entered the tiny territory from Morocco in a matter of hours, triggering a political crisis for the Madrid government and unleashing a barrage of criticism from other EU countries.
The large influx of people arriving in Ceuta by swimming across from neighbouring Morocco or scaling the high border fence has caught the city of 85,000 off guard and resulted in what one local police association has called a “serious humanitarian crisis”.
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who arrived in Ceuta on Friday, described the influx as “a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity” and said he would use all the state resources at his disposal to guarantee the safety of the people of Ceuta.
Moroccan government throwing a tantrum again and sacrificing their own citizens.
Not sure what they want this time, most likely it’s related to Spain signing some treaties with Algeria a few days ago.[Spain’s prime minister] attributed the mass crossing to “human trafficking mafias” that had taken advantage of a decision by Spain’s supreme court, which recently ruled that those intercepted at sea while trying to enter Ceuta, or Spain’s other north African enclave of Melilla, could not be summarily returned under special rules.
Also,
The Moroccan government is asking its citizens who have crossed the border to return home. Morocco’s ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, said at an embassy event Thursday that the situation in Ceuta was “not wanted by the Kingdom of Morocco,” adding that it would “prefer legal, orderly, and safe immigration for everyone.”
https://time.com/article/2026/07/31/ceuta-spain-morocco-africa-explainer/ (arc)
I’m confused how you can be caught off guard with 40,000 people moving en-masse. It’s not like they just materialize at the border.
Read the article. It explains how this happened.
I did. It still doesn’t say how they could not see 40,000 people coming and prepare for it.
How do you prepare for that many people in less than 24 hours?
Again, my main question was how did they not see them coming. I understand if they weren’t prepared for it. If they did see them coming and the news was just exaggerating that they were caught off-guard, then fine.
A man is standing next to you at a bar. The bouncer tells him he can punch you. So he punches you. Could you really have seen that coming or prepared for it?
That’s basically what happened here. They were at the border, the court issued an opinion, so tens of thousands of people immediately started crossing. No one was given notice that this was going to happen. The article says all of this.
They didn’t just appear out of thin air. The town of Fnideq houses 77.000 people. Having 50.000 people just show up and fill your streets will completely derail public life.
Fnideq is a little over a kilometer from the border, so there would have plenty of signs in the days and weeks leading up to the crossing.
And even if there wasn’t, it should’ve been perfectly clear that the court rulings might trigger a new wave of crossings. Especially in a critical area like Ceuta. EU states are right to call out Spain for its lax attitude to border control.
Okay, what would proper preparation have looked like to you, then?
Barbed wire and machine gun emplacements.
If that was true why not quote the relevant section?
Media literacy is bad enough as it is. I’m not going to help people avoid using their brains for trivial tasks.
Using my advanced powers of media literacy I am hearing you say the article doesn’t say what you just claimed it did and now you’re mad about being caught in a lie
the Spanish government said about 50,000 people had crossed the border
Spain’s interior ministry … said more than 48,300 people had voluntarily returned to Morocco
Does that make it approximately 2,000 migrants?
European countries including Spain have sown destruction and exploitation around the world for their own benefit. It’s not surprising that marginalized people are trying to get their fair share. European countries have spread capitalism which destroys communal support systems in order to profit off of access to resources/land/cheap (or free) labor force/etc. regardless of societal/ecological consequences (“externalities”).
If Europe wants to solve the refugee/migrant problem it should help communities to rise above the system that puts a price tag on human needs and which is based on a competitive struggle of everyone for themselves and their family, while an elite gets richer and more powerful above it all.
Its not ‘marginalized people’ trying to ‘get their fair share’. Its normal citizens like you and me, who have grown absolutely desperate because the dire economic circumstances in their home countries.
Yes, these countries have been disadvantaged by capitalism and their colonial history, but their current day problems are as much an effect of of corruption, mismanagement, geography and a host of other factors.
Appropriating other people’s problems to serve your own ideological views only serves to polarize the argument.
Europe has very real ways of fixing the issues in the near abroad in a way that also strengthens the continent itself, but conservative and right-wing demagogues continue to frustrate any form of constructive dialogue. Don’t fuel the fire.
What nonsense
One easy solution, just cede ceuta to Morocco, why is that little spit of land spains any way?
Ceuta is part of Spanish kingdoms since way before Morocco ever existed.
What if Ceuta wants to be spanish?
