{"id":618910,"date":"2026-08-03T22:57:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/618910\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T22:57:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:57:21","slug":"ceuta-leader-blames-morocco-over-atrocity-of-mass-border-crossing-after-more-than-90-die-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/618910\/","title":{"rendered":"Ceuta leader blames Morocco over \u2018atrocity\u2019 of mass border crossing after more than 90 die \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A growing chorus of voices have accused Morocco<\/a> of helping to fuel the crisis in Ceuta<\/a>, with the leader of the Spanish enclave in north Africa describing last week\u2019s border crossings as an attack on Spain\u2019s<\/a> territorial integrity that was seen as being \u201cif not orchestrated, at least encouraged or permitted by Morocco\u201d.<\/p>\n

Spanish officials \u2060said on Monday that an estimated 69,500 people who had arrived late last week in Ceuta, a tiny Spanish territory, had returned to Morocco in recent days. Around 2,500 people who had made the crossing were believed to still be in Ceuta.<\/p>\n

The extraordinary influx had overwhelmed the city of 84,000 people and set off a political crisis across the European Union<\/a> as some member states laid blame on Spain.<\/p>\n

In Ceuta, leaders pointed to the broader picture of what had transpired. \u201cIt\u2019s an atrocity,\u201d said Juan Jes\u00fas Vivas, the long-serving conservative leader of the territory. \u201cThere are 88 bodies in the morgue, and there are more on the other side of the border.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least 11 deaths have been recorded in Morocco.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland convenes meeting of EU ministers to discuss Spain\u2019s Ceuta crisis<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said local people watched the events play out with a mix of sadness, worry and anguish. \u201cPeople see this not as a migration crisis; it was fundamentally an attack, a violation of Spain\u2019s territorial integrity,\u201d Vivas told El Pa\u00eds newspaper. \u201cPeople felt that this, if not orchestrated, was at least encouraged or permitted by Morocco.\u201d<\/p>\n

He drew a parallel with May 2021 when Rabat loosened border controls, allowing 10,000 people to cross into Ceuta over the course of two days, during a diplomatic standoff over Madrid\u2019s decision to allow a Western Sahara independence leader to be treated for Covid-19 in Spain.<\/p>\n

This time around, analysts have suggested that Spain\u2019s recent rapprochement with Rabat\u2019s arch-enemy Algeria could have triggered a response from Morocco.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Monday, Spain\u2019s defence minister, Margarita Robles, also seemingly signalled Rabat\u2019s involvement. \u201cNeither Spain nor Morocco can look the other way when it comes to this tragedy,\u201d she told reporters. \u201cI ask the Moroccan government to fully investigate what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MigrantsMigrants receive water on the beach on Ceuta on Sunday after Spanish troops were drafted in. Photograph: Adri Salido\/Getty <\/p>\n

The insinuation appeared to be backed by the preliminary assessment of Spanish intelligence services, who cited suspicions that the influx had not been planned by Moroccan authorities, but it concluded that Morocco had failed to stem the tide of people rushing towards the border and in some cases had even facilitated their passage.<\/p>\n

Intelligence sources told El Pa\u00eds that the roots of the influx probably lay in a hoax that had swiftly spread across social media after a Spanish supreme court ruling that migrants arriving by sea could not be summarily deported. As the hoax gained steam online, Moroccan border surveillance dwindled to a minimum until it was completely lifted late last week, allowing tens of thousands of people to stream through.<\/p>\n

In Ceuta on Monday, hundreds of people continued to sleep rough on the beach or near Ceuta\u2019s mosques. One local official told reporters that those who remained in the city included 862 unaccompanied minors.<\/p>\n

Ashraf (28) said he had defied his mother\u2019s warnings against crossing into Spain after spotting posts on social media that said the border had been opened. While he had made it to Ceuta, what had followed was a days-long ordeal as he scrambled to find food and shelter while fending off the memories of what he had lived through.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might see me smile a little but inside I\u2019m shattered,\u201d the Moroccan national said as he recalled swimming past bodies to reach Ceuta. \u201cThere were so many people in the sea. Everyone was trying to grab on to you to save themselves, and you were trying to escape and move forward so they wouldn\u2019t drag you down or drown you. The Moroccan police were pushing us toward the water and telling us \u2018swim, swim\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others were desperately seeking loved ones who were missing. One mother said she had been roaming the streets of Ceuta for days, frantically searching for any sign of her children aged 13 and 16.<\/p>\n

She had left Morocco alone, finding out later that her two children had followed her by plunging into the sea to make their way around the border.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need help,\u201d she said as she held up a photo of a smiling young boy flashing a thumbs-up sign. \u201cSome migrants told me they had seen them in Ceuta, but I can\u2019t find them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the EU, the crisis in Ceuta had seemingly ushered in a moment of reckoning after a handful of EU countries responded to the crisis by calling for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen<\/a> free-movement zone. Italy said it had suspended passport-free Schengen travel arrangements with Spain for one month, despite the fact Ceuta is not part of Schengen.<\/p>\n

Before an emergency video meeting of interior ministers on Tuesday to address the crisis, Spain\u2019s foreign minister said the country would demand solidarity from EU members after several had, in his view, \u201cfallen short\u201d of what was expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a synchronised reactionary international effort that very quickly amplified what was happening, spreading lies and fake news about the integrity of the Schengen area and about Spain\u2019s actions,\u201d Jos\u00e9 Manuel Albares told the broadcaster TVE. \u201cUnfortunately, these falsehoods have even been amplified by some European governments.\u201d<\/p>\n

What had transpired in Ceuta was \u201cvery unusual\u201d, he said. \u201cSpain currently has the lowest number of irregular entries on the Mediterranean route,\u201d he added, while Italy \u201cwas the country with the highest number of irregular entries in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he had been in contact with Moroccan authorities throughout the crisis. \u201cThey showed a willingness from the very beginning to mobilise police forces to help stem the flow of migrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ursula von der Leyen<\/a>, the European Commission<\/a> president, said in a letter to Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a>, that the Tuesday meeting would be a chance to draw lessons from what happened in Ceuta and she commended Madrid for its swift handling of the crisis. \u201cFrom this incident, it is clear that we must do more to further strengthen our borders at critical points, including vigilant monitoring and the use of physical barriers where needed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She praised the Spanish socialist leader\u2019s swift handling of the crisis, after the vast majority of migrants left Ceuta and Spain officials began installing a 500-metre floating barrier at the border \u200cwith Morocco. \u201cOrder has been restored and the returns system in place worked,\u201d she wrote in the letter.<\/p>\n

The EU, she said, should double down on five areas: strengthening co-operation with non-EU countries to prevent migration; stronger external borders; implementing early warning systems; dismantling smuggling networks; and boosting returns of people with no right to stay. <\/p>\n

At a meeting of member states on Saturday, the Guardian was told that while Italy and Denmark, with some support from Poland and Sweden, had criticised Spain for what had happened, there was a strong suspicion that the crisis was not an accident but had been co-ordinated.<\/p>\n

There was widespread recognition that Spain could not simply pin the blame on Morocco, given the close co-operation needed to return those who had crossed and, in the longer term, for migration control and security, a source said.<\/p>\n

EU states also spoke about the threat of Russian<\/a> disinformation and how it could exploit the crisis to heighten tensions across the bloc, the source said.<\/p>\n

The concerns came into public view late last week when Ukraine\u2019s<\/a> acting foreign minister said more than 1,500 publications regarding Ceuta had been identified in pro-Russian networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have detected an intensive Russian propaganda campaign across Europe using pictures from Ceuta to sow destabilisation,\u201d Andrii Sybiha wrote on social media. \u201cThis is not about the situation itself but about the way Russia tries to exploit any topic that can benefit its agenda.\u201d \u2013 The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A growing chorus of voices have accused Morocco of helping to fuel the crisis in Ceuta, with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[4204,9,10,5766,2219,13,14,6,56,11,12,15,16,19614,10456,5,81065,550,123662,383,7,8,2264,4894,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-618910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-africa","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-immigration","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-migrant-crisis","tag-morocco","tag-news","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-russia","tag-schengen","tag-spain","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine-crisis","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117034055256903449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}