Madrid has sent troops, more police, including divers, drones and boats, to boost security in Ceuta. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his interior minister rushed to the enclave on Friday.
People try to swim through the waters close to the fence near Fnideq, on the Morocco-Spain border, on July 31, 2026.

 

On Friday, Spain’s interior minister said that 25,000 people who had crossed had voluntarily returned to Morocco.

AFP reporters have seen hundreds of people, including men, women and children, entering Ceuta, discarding flotation rings and clothes used in the risky passage.

On Friday, hundreds of migrants, mostly young men, were hanging around on the Morocco side of the border while others were seen turning back, saying “there are too many people here”.

“It’s catastrophic,” said Mohammed, a local taxi driver and Ceuta resident. “Sure, we sympathise with them — they’re having a terrible time in their own country, and all that — but this isn’t the way to enter a place, nor is it a way to live.”

It was not immediately clear what prompted this surge of migrants from Morocco. Some previous surges have occurred during tensions between Spain and Morocco.

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Sanchez visited Algiers on July 20 — the first such visit by a Spanish head of government in four years — marking a thaw in relations with Morocco’s rival Algeria, but it was not clear if this visit was related to the influx.

Sanchez, in Ceuta, blamed the sudden inflow on people-traffickers spreading rumours about a Spanish Supreme Court ruling this month that irregular migrants arriving by sea cannot be immediately returned.

“What has emerged from our talks with Moroccan authorities is that trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling,” he said. That interpretation “spread like wildfire in recent hours.”

 

Diplomatic Fallout

Damaged and burnt vehicles are pictured at the site of clashes near Fnideq, on the Morocco-Spain border, on July 31, 2026.Scenes of the crowds of people surging into a member of the European Union, which normally does not enforce border controls between members, sparked diplomatic fallout.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on social media called the scenes at Ceuta “unacceptable”, adding: “We cannot allow anyone to come to our (European) Union without abiding by our rules.”

Italy on Thursday called for Spain to be suspended from Europe’s open-borders Schengen zone, prompting Spain to summon Italy’s ambassador and accuse Rome of using the crisis for political gain.

Finland and Denmark on Friday backed Italy’s call, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz demanded that Morocco “take back illegal migrants immediately”.

France and Britain said they stood ready to help Spain with the sudden surge — but France also said it was tightening its border checks with Spain.

 

‘Bye Morocco’

 

Members of Moroccan security forces and people gather at the site of clashes near Fnideq, on the Morocco-Spain border, on July 31, 2026.

 

Ceuta, a territory of 18.5 square kilometres (seven square miles), and similar enclave Melilla are Europe’s only two land borders with Africa.

Ebullient migrants have been walking through the streets of Ceuta, thanking the Spanish police and calling out: “Bye bye Morocco, hello Spain.”

Police and Civil Guards in Ceuta appeared to do little to intervene, although some officers attempted to direct the arrivals to the local migrant reception centre.

On Friday, Moroccan security forces deployed tear gas and water canon to disperse a thousands-strong crowd of mainly young men gathered to try a border crossing, with at least 30 people arrested, an AFP journalist saw.

Morocco’s authorities had not yet issued an official statement on the flow of migrants, but a Moroccan official source told AFP on condition of anonymity that the two countries had spoken about the matter.