{"id":79966,"date":"2026-09-03T10:06:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T10:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/79966\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T10:06:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T10:06:30","slug":"thousands-of-protesters-march-in-spain-over-ceuta-migrant-crisis-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/79966\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of protesters march in Spain over Ceuta migrant crisis | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands of people marched across Spain on Wednesday to show support for the exclave city of Ceuta, a small Spanish territory located in North Africa where a crisis has been unfolding<\/a> since an estimated 80,000 migrants stormed the border crossing on July 30 and 31. <\/p>\n

Around 20,000 people gathered in Ceuta itself, calling for a return to normality in a city that is struggling with the aftermath of the migrant surge, and where an estimated 5,000 to 9,000 migrants still remain<\/a> after a majority crossed back into Morocco. Protesters demanded the expulsion of illegal migrants while the city\u2019s leader, Juan Jes\u00fas Vivas, thanked \u201call the Spaniards who are telling us we are not alone, who tell us Ceuta is not for sale, that it will be defended.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Ceuta leader Juan Jes\u00fas Vivas raises his hand during a march to protest the migrant crisis, on September 2. Javier Hern\u00e1ndez<\/p>\n

Another 50,000 demonstrators, according to national authorities, rallied in Madrid, where they chanted insults directed at the central government led by Pedro S\u00e1nchez of the Socialist Party (PSOE). Riot police were called in after the main protest ended at Cibeles Square, where a group of several hundred people continued to march towards Congress with cries of \u201cViva Espa\u00f1a!\u201d and \u201cCeuta is not for sale!\u201d. There were around 25,000 protesters in Valencia, where some people burned images of S\u00e1nchez and of Moroccan king Mohammed VI, amid cries of \u201cSpain is Christian, not Muslim!<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n

Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o and Santiago Abascal, leaders of the mainstream conservative People\u2019s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox respectively, both attended the Madrid march separately. They accused S\u00e1nchez of \u201clying\u201d to Spaniards and of being a \u201ctraitor to Spain\u201d and a \u201clackey of Morocco\u201d due to the prime minister\u2019s reluctance to express any criticism of the Moroccan government in connection with the sudden migrant influx<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pedro S\u00e1nchez appears in Congress to explain his government’s handling of the Ceuta crisis.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez appeared in Congress on Thursday to defend that his executive has no indications that Morocco was in any way behind the sudden migrant crossing. This week, Spain\u2019s National Police handed a report to the judge investigating the events of July 30-31; the document, drawn up by the police\u2019s National Center for Immigration and Borders (CENIF), suggests that Moroccan gendarmes may have helped \u201cguide\u201d the mass movement of people towards the Spanish territory.<\/p>\n

The prime minister insisted on Thursday that the executive did not receive any \u201calerts or extraordinary warnings\u201d in the days prior to the migrant surge. \u201cThe government has nothing to hide in this matter. I have given the order to release a dossier with all the reports, all of them, so that the media and citizens can examine them personally. It is absurd to think that the executive was warned and purposely didn\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The protests had been called by the Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), a right-leaning agency.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands of people marched across Spain on Wednesday to show support for the exclave city of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[190,3299,82,205,3207,3205,17,3206],"class_list":["post-79966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-alberto-nunez-feijoo","tag-ceuta","tag-madrid","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-pp","tag-santiago-abascal","tag-spain","tag-vox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}