Thousands of Spaniards marched from Cibeles Square to the Moncloa Arch in Madrid on Saturday, demanding Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s resignation over his government’s handling of the Ceuta migration crisis, now nearly two months after Spain’s worst border incident in living memory.
The crisis began on 30 July, when roughly 72,000 people crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave of 84,000 residents perched on Africa’s northern coast, over the span of a few days — most swimming, scrambling over breakwaters, or climbing the border fence. Most returned to Morocco or were sent back within days, but around 5,000 people, including 1,200 minors, remained in the city weeks later, according to Spain’s national government; Ceuta’s own local authorities put the number higher.
Exactly how many died attempting the crossing remains disputed and, notably, unresolved. Moroccan authorities recovered 11 bodies, while Spain put the toll at 80 and later at 141, without explaining how it reached either figure. The Moroccan Association for Human Rights, a non-governmental group, separately estimated at least 141 deaths — the same number Sanchez eventually cited to parliament, though his office has not confirmed whether the figures are linked.
Speaking to lawmakers on 3 September, Sanchez rejected suggestions — drawn from a leaked police report — that Moroccan authorities had deliberately allowed the crossing to happen. “No institution — neither the diplomatic service, nor the European Commission, nor any international body — has provided the Spanish government with solid evidence that Morocco planned or carried out the incident,” he said.
He did concede that for a 10-hour window on 30 July, when arrivals peaked, Morocco’s Gendarmerie “allowed the border to be crossed.” Spain’s government has said the surge was fuelled by an online disinformation campaign falsely claiming the border had opened, and it has since summoned Morocco’s ambassador after two Moroccan ministers publicly questioned Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla, the EU’s only land borders with Africa.
What’s largely absent from the political fight in Madrid is who was actually trying to cross, and why. In the smaller follow-up crossing attempts that Moroccan security forces intercepted through August — including one operation that detained 294 people, only 46 of them Moroccan — the majority were from sub-Saharan Africa. Among those detained near the border town of Fnideq was Abdessamad Dawad, 22, who said he wanted to reach Europe because his country, Sudan, “is plagued by problems and insecurity.” Fellow Sudanese migrant Chams Edine Yakoub, 25, put it more starkly: “There’s no work here. There’s no money. There’s no housing. There is absolutely nothing, I swear.”
That pattern isn’t new. Ceuta and Melilla have been recurring flashpoints since at least May 2021, when Morocco briefly dropped its own border controls and let roughly 8,000 people cross in two days, widely seen as retaliation after Spain allowed a Western Sahara independence leader to receive hospital treatment on Spanish soil. What’s different this time is scale: July’s crossing was roughly nine times larger, and has now produced a domestic political crisis serious enough that protesters are demanding not just policy changes but Sanchez’s resignation and snap elections.
Spain has pledged an additional €306 million in aid for Ceuta, and five EU nations have separately floated sending rejected asylum seekers to “return hubs” outside the bloc by 2027 — part of a broader European retreat from earlier migration commitments. None of it resolves the more basic fact driving people like Dawad and Yakoub toward the fence at Fnideq in the first place. Afrikeye continues to track migration and governance stories shaping Africa’s relationship with Europe.
