At least 75 people drowned trying to swim across the border into Ceuta as a mass crossing from Morocco brought 72,000 migrants into the Spanish enclave in the space of days, overwhelming the city's reception facilities and leaving residents fearful, angry, and demanding answers from Madrid. The Interior Ministry said almost all of the migrants had returned to Morocco by Wednesday, but the city remained tense and struggling to regain normality.
Julián López Gómez, reporting from the Autonomous City two days after the crossings, found a demonstration already under way. Protesters chanted "Ceuta is not for sale", "Pedro Sánchez, resign!" and "Ceuta, united, will never be defeated!". One woman told him, "This cannot be, Spain cannot have such a useless intelligence service that it has no idea what is going on in Ceuta." She said she hadn't slept for two nights and had shut herself away at home with her granddaughters. Another participant said, "This is a military city. The 3,000 soldiers we have should have been deployed to defend it." A third demonstrator criticised the government's silence: "No one came out to say absolutely anything. At least to say what we are going to do. A plan. Nothing."
Human Cost and Humanitarian Crisis
The crisis was marked by tragedy from the start. Spanish authorities said at least 75 people drowned while trying to swim across the border area, now protected by a floating barrier, and there were fears there may have been more victims. Authorities said at least 1,000 minors were among those still in Ceuta in the days after the rush. Migrants who arrived spoke of desperation and hardship. One said, "There is no money in Morocco. That is why we came to Spain. But here we have been treated very badly." Another said, "My father, my whole family are poor. Now we are here and we try to get by. We sleep on the street. We are here, life is very hard, but…" Asked whether he would stay or go back, he replied, "For now, here. I don't know how long I can hold out here."
The reporter said migrants were roaming beaches, streets, parks and wasteland. The visible deployment of state security forces did little to ease the sense of anguish. López Gómez captured one operation involving a group of migrants by one of the city's most central beaches and later saw other migrants taken off buses at the border and escorted back to the place where they had entered days earlier.
Civil Society Steps In
The NGO Luna Blanca said it had assisted at least 4,000 people since the start of the crisis. On the afternoon the reporter was filming, 2,000 food portions were handed out in barely two hours. Its coordinator, Halima Ahmed Iacobi, said, "We are human first and foremost. We cannot allow people to die of hunger. So, where does humanity come in? What do we care about the pull factor?" She rejected the narrative that generous reception conditions were driving migration. "Do you know what the pull factor is? The pull factor is the rumours that spread on social media saying that when a migrant arrives in Spain a red carpet is rolled out, they are given 1,500 or 1,800 euros in benefits, every social benefit imaginable is opened up to them, with soup kitchens for their children. The only thing they still need to tell them is that they are given a car and a holiday flat as well. That is the pull factor."
Fear and Bewilderment
The reporter said fear was heightened by the fact that the migrants who arrived were overwhelmingly men. He stayed in Ceuta for less than 30 hours and left four days after the start of the crisis. He wrote that between indignation, fear, anguish, incomprehension, mistrust, bewilderment and compassion, the Autonomous City appeared to face an uncertain struggle to regain normality.
Why This Matters:
The Ceuta crisis exposes the gap between Spain's migration policy ambitions and its capacity to respond to sudden, large-scale arrivals. At least 75 people died attempting the crossing — a preventable tragedy that reflects the failure of both Spain and Morocco to manage borders humanely and with adequate early-warning systems. Residents' anger is legitimate: the government's silence and lack of a clear plan left a small city to manage 72,000 arrivals alone, while civil society groups like Luna Blanca stepped in to provide basic food and dignity. The crisis also reveals the power of misinformation: as Halima Ahmed Iacobi noted, false rumours of generous benefits drive dangerous journeys, while the reality is sleeping rough on beaches. Spain must invest in reception capacity, coordinate with Morocco on border management, and counter disinformation — while defending the principle that people fleeing poverty and violence deserve humane treatment, not pushbacks into the sea.