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Spain’s politicians point finger at Morocco over Ceuta crisis

 

Spain’s politicians point finger at Morocco over Ceuta crisis

 

While Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has avoided blaming Rabat, politicians from both left and right insist Morocco has questions to answer.

 

August 3, 2026 1:51 pm CET

By Aitor Hernández-Morales

https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-morocco-ceuta-migrant-surge-border-crisis/

 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described last week’s sudden influx of 50,000 migrants into the exclave of Ceuta in North Africa as an “attack,” but has been careful to accuse people smugglers rather than the Moroccan authorities of orchestrating it.

 

That diplomatic position from Madrid is coming under pressure, however, from Spanish politicians from both the right and left, who argue that Rabat has questions to answer about the cross-border surge, in which 88 people died.

 

From the moment massive numbers of people began to enter the city last Thursday, Spanish Civil Guard forces reported that Moroccan gendarmes who normally assist in securing the border had inexplicably left their posts.

 

That led many to suspect that such a large flow of people could hardly be masterminded without the acquiescence of Morocco, which claims the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla as occupied territories.

 

Diplomatic speculation has also centered on whether Rabat could be flexing its muscles over Spain’s recent rapprochement with Algeria, which supports self-determination in Western Sahara — a territory claimed by Morocco.

 

“Let’s call things by their name: Morocco is using human beings to attack our sovereignty,” said Eduardo Rubiño, lawmaker with the Sánchez-allied, left-wing Más Madrid party.

 

Ceuta Mayor Juan Jesús Vivas from the conservative People’s Party on Monday said the situation could not be characterized as “a migration crisis” because “people have the perception that this, if not orchestrated, was encouraged or permitted” by Moroccan authorities.

 

Vivas conceded that Madrid had to do its utmost to continue working with Rabat, but also told Spanish newspaper El País that “Morocco has shown us that it is not reliable.”

 

Since the outset of the crisis, Spain’s Socialist-led government has prioritized smooth relations with Morocco, which will prove critical to resolving the crisis, rather than pinning the blame on Rabat.

 

A spokesperson for Spain’s foreign ministry insisted “the relationship with Morocco is excellent, and coordination on migration and other issues remains very strong.”

 

While visiting Ceuta on Friday, Sánchez characterized the crisis as “an attack, a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity,” but made no attempt to link Rabat to the operation, which he attributed to “mafias that traffic in human beings.”

 

Instead, he described Morocco as “an ally” and thanked Rabat for its help in repatriating the people who had entered the exclave without authorization.

 

Political liability

Moroccan authorities avoided addressing the Ceuta crisis until late on Sunday evening, when Interior Ministry Spokesperson Rachid El Khalfi delivered a statement blaming the sudden influx of migrants on social media posts “which aimed to create the illusion of easy access to the European space without legal consequences.”

 

“The Kingdom of Morocco will continue to be, as it has always been with its partners, a reliable and responsible partner, firmly committed to strengthening international cooperation and coordination in the fight against irregular migration and human trafficking,” El Khalfi said.

 

Spanish opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who heads the center-right People’s Party, this weekend demanded a clarification of “what failed in co-operation with Morocco” and said that Spain had a right to demand that Rabat deliver on its obligations on border security.

 

He said he wished Spain to “have a relationship of good neighborliness, cooperation, and mutual respect with Morocco,” but that “there are things that shouldn’t be done, and if they are, they must be met with a strong response.”

 

Still, the People’s Party has focused its broader political strategy on the Sánchez government’s failure to anticipate the sudden influx of migrants, rather than focusing on Morocco.

 

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska this weekend claimed the country’s National Intelligence Center, which handles both foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence under the Ministry of Defense, had failed to warn Madrid of any developments on the border.

 

But intelligence sources quoted by Spain’s Cadena Ser radio network on Monday said that in the lead-up to last week’s crisis, the interior ministry had been warned that a mass entry into Ceuta could take place at any moment. Moreover, Spanish media reported that in July the ministry’s own Office for Refugees and Asylum warned that the growing number of migrants swimming to Ceuta could soon overwhelm the exclave.

 

“Sánchez and his government lie — as they always do,” People’s Party spokesperson Ester Muñoz said. “The government was warned by its intelligence services and did nothing.”

 

Brussels brawl

Madrid’s inability to anticipate the crisis will be under scrutiny at an emergency meeting of the EU’s ambassadors on Monday, and at a separate extraordinary summit of the bloc’s interior ministers scheduled for Tuesday.

 

Over the past five days, a plethora of EU leaders and far-right parties have slammed Spain for losing control of one of the bloc’s external borders and effectively bringing the Ceuta crisis upon itself by moving to grant legal status to 1.2 million unauthorized migrants.

 

In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, 22 of the bloc’s leaders on Saturday called for EU-level oversight on national policies “that can serve as pull factors.”

 

Ahead of Monday’s meeting of EU ambassadors, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares pushed back against Madrid’s critics in other European capitals and said his country would “demand solidarity from all the States of the European Union.”

 

“Spain currently has the lowest number of irregular entries on the Mediterranean route,” Albares said during an interview on Spanish state broadcaster TVE. Rather than question Madrid’s efforts, he insisted that the EU’s role was to support and assist Spain in the defense of “the only two European and Spanish cities that share a land border with Africa.”

 

At the same time that he chided critical member countries for their attitude, Spain’s foreign minister praised Rabat for its help in resolving the crisis.

 

“From the very beginning, Morocco offered its cooperation to try to prevent this flow of people and, above all, to ensure their immediate return, as is happening,” he said. “The vast majority of those who entered are already back in Morocco, and Morocco continues to offer this cooperation so that every last person who entered Ceuta returns to Morocco.”

Ceuta leader accuses Morocco over ‘atrocity’ of mass border crossing

 

Ceuta leader accuses Morocco over ‘atrocity’ of mass border crossing

 

Juan Jesús Vivas says influx seen as ‘at least encouraged or permitted’ by Rabat, as Spain demands EU solidarity

 

Ashifa Kassam in Madrid, Okba Mohammad in Ceuta and Lisa O’Carroll in London

Mon 3 Aug 2026 15.13 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/03/ceuta-leader-border-crossing-morocco-spain

 

A growing chorus of voices have accused Morocco of helping to fuel the crisis in Ceuta, with the leader of the Spanish enclave describing last week’s border crossings as an attack on Spain’s territorial integrity that was seen as being “if not orchestrated, at least encouraged or permitted by Morocco”.

 

Spain’s interior ministry said late last week that 48,300 of the roughly 50,000 people who had turned up in Ceuta, a tiny Spanish territory in north Africa, had been sent back to Morocco. The extraordinary influx had overwhelmed the city of 84,000 and set off a political crisis across the EU as some member states laid blame on Spain.

 

In Ceuta, leaders pointed to the broader picture of what had transpired. “It’s an atrocity,” said Juan Jesús Vivas, the long-serving conservative leader of the territory. “There are 88 bodies in the morgue, and there are more on the other side of the border.”

 

He said local people watched the events play out with a mix of sadness, worry and anguish. “People see this not as a migration crisis; it was fundamentally an attack, a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity,” Vivas told El País newspaper. “People felt that this, if not orchestrated, was at least encouraged or permitted by Morocco.”

 

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’s decision to allow a Western Sahara independence leader to be treated for Covid-19 in Spain.

 

The insinuation of Moroccan involvement 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 concluded that Morocco had failed to stem the tide of people rushing towards the border and in some cases had even facilitated their passage.

 

Intelligence sources told El País 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.

 

In Ceuta on Monday, hundreds of people continued to sleep rough on the beach or near Ceuta’s mosques.

 

Ashraf, 28, said he had defied his mother’s 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.

 

“You might see me smile a little but inside I’m shattered,” the Moroccan national said as he recalled swimming past bodies to reach Ceuta. “There 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’t drag you down or drown you. The Moroccan police were pushing us toward the water and telling us ‘swim, swim’.”

 

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.

 

The three had left Morocco together, plunging into the sea to make their way around the border. As strong currents pulled at them, she lost sight of her children.

 

“I need help,” she said as she held up a photo of a smiling young boy flashing a thumbs-up sign. “Some migrants told me they had seen them in Ceuta, but I can’t find them.”

 

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 free-movement zone.

 

Before a meeting of interior ministers on Tuesday to address the crisis, Spain’s foreign minister said the country would demand solidarity from EU members after several had, in his view, “fallen short” of what was expected.

 

“There 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’s actions,” José Manuel Albares told the broadcaster TVE. “Unfortunately, these falsehoods have even been amplified by some European governments.”

 

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said in a letter to Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, 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. “From this incident, it is clear that we must do more to further strengthen our borders at critical points,” she said.

 

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

 

There was widespread recognition that Spain could not simply pin the blame on Morocco, given the close cooperation needed to return those who had crossed and, in the longer term, for migration control and security, a source said.

 

EU states also spoke about the threat of Russian disinformation and how it could exploit the crisis to heighten tensions across the bloc, he added.

 

The concerns burst into public view late last week when Ukraine’s acting foreign minister said more than 1,500 publications regarding Ceuta had been identified in pro-Russian networks.

 

“We have detected an intensive Russian propaganda campaign across Europe using pictures from Ceuta to sow destabilisation,” Andrii Sybiha wrote on social media. “This is not about the situation itself but about the way Russia tries to exploit any topic that can benefit its agenda.”

Farage-Lowe Deal Finally Happening? Farage Opens Door to Lowe Pact as UK Right Faces Realignment

Farage calls for Royal Navy to be deployed to the Channel

 

Reform UK proposes "Operation Fortress," a hardline plan to militarize the English Channel by deploying the Royal Navy to intercept all unauthorized migrant small boats and forcibly return the passengers to France or Belgium.

 

Reform UK proposes "Operation Fortress," a hardline plan to militarize the English Channel by deploying the Royal Navy to intercept all unauthorized migrant small boats and forcibly return the passengers to France or Belgium.

 

Joint Military and Surveillance Command

• Unified Command Structure: Establish a joint military operation drawing units from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, British Army, and Royal Air Force.
• Integrated Surveillance Command: Unify intelligence and military asset tracking to build a comprehensive maritime monitoring grid across the Channel.
• Emergency Powers: Pass emergency legislation to grant participating armed forces explicit legal powers for at-sea interception and detention.

Interception and Return Tactics

• At-Sea Interception: Deploy navy-crewed inflatable boats and patrol vessels to match speeds, approach, and halt small crossing vessels.
• Onboard Processing: Detain intercepted individuals at sea to provide immediate food, water, and baseline medical assessments.
• Forced Repatriation: Escort and return individuals directly back to continental ports in France or Belgium under naval supervision.