Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is scheduled to visit the north African enclave of Ceuta on Friday, following a massive influx of migrants who crossed the border from Morocco. The situation has prompted the Spanish government to deploy troops to reinforce the Civil Guard, as local officials warn that the territory is facing a severe social and humanitarian emergency.
Reports from Thursday indicated that a continuous stream of adults and children entered the 18.5-square-kilometre territory by swimming around the border fence. Discarded clothing and flotation devices were found abandoned along the shoreline near the border barrier. While some police and Civil Guard officers attempted to direct arrivals toward a local migrant reception centre, many migrants were seen walking through the streets, calling out in celebration of their arrival in Spanish territory.
Official figures from Ceuta indicate that at least nine people have died while attempting the crossing. Ceuta and Melilla, which represent the only two land borders between Europe and Africa, remain a sensitive point of tension in diplomatic relations between Madrid and Rabat. While Moroccan authorities have not issued a formal statement regarding this specific influx, an anonymous official source confirmed that the two nations have been in communication regarding the matter.
The current crisis follows a significant diplomatic incident on Thursday, when Italy called for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen open-borders zone, leading Spain to summon the Italian ambassador to Madrid. The situation echoes a 2021 event where over 10,000 migrants reached Ceuta in two days after Morocco loosened border controls during a separate diplomatic dispute involving the Polisario Front.
Sánchez is expected to be accompanied by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska during his visit to the Tarajal border crossing. This visit follows the Prime Minister's recent trip to Algiers on July 20th, which marked the first such visit by a Spanish government leader in four years and signaled a warming of relations between Spain and Algeria, a nation that has historically supported the Sahrawi independence movement in Western Sahara.
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Morocco's authorities had not yet issued an official statement on the influx of people, but a Moroccan official source told AFP on condition of anonymity that the two countries had spoken about the matter.
