Widely circulated video showed thousands of Moroccans storming a Spanish outpost in North Africa. The White House condemned Spain as weak on immigration.
As images of the crush spread quickly via social media, Spain responded, ordering a military deployment on Thursday to restore order. On Friday, Spain reinforced security and border fences, with Morocco deploying water cannons to push migrants back.
The sudden spike in arrivals sparked outrage across the European political spectrum. Before a more gradual uptick in recent days, only 2,698 migrants had arrived in Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish exclave, via land during the first six months of the year, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.
It raised speculation of a repeat of 2021, when tensions between Spain and Morocco led to the Moroccans dropping border controls, allowing 8,000 migrants into Ceuta in two days.
Citing Foreign Ministry sources, Spanish media outlets reported that Spanish authorities were discounting that theory, and Sánchez publicly blamed human traffickers responding to a recent Supreme Court decision that migrants arriving by sea to Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily returned without due process
Morocco’s ambassador in Spain, Karima Benyaich, said in public remarks that the migration had unfolded “outside of our will” and that Morocco “wants these citizens to return to our country,” according to media reports.
Speaking Friday from Ceuta, Sánchez sought to defend the government’s response, including additional deployments of police and civil guards. He said authorities would place buoys in the breakwaters to act as a “containment barrier.”
He decried the rush of migrants as a “violation” of Spanish territory, saying some of them were already returning voluntarily and more would be repatriated.
“This situation is unprecedented,” he said. “It breaks the trend that we have been recording throughout Spain of a systematic reduction year after year, month by month, in the arrivals of irregular migrants.”
