Ceuta’s border crisis is about geopolitics, not just migration

According to a European Parliament resolution adopted in June 2021, Moroccan police temporarily eased controls at the border of Ceuta, the Spanish enclave of about 83,000 people on the North African coast, and failed to stop thousands of people from entering.

The resolution described how roughly 9,000 people entered Ceuta that May, including at least 1,200 unaccompanied children, days after Spain admitted the leader of the Polisario Front for medical treatment .

Brahim Ghali leads the movement seeking independence for Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony Morocco considers part of its territory and treats as its foremost diplomatic priority.

Morocco considered it a Spanish betrayal and recalled its ambassador from Madrid .

By March 2022, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez reversed four decades of Spanish neutrality and endorsed Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara .

These events are the closest we can come to understanding what happened at the same border a few weeks ago, on July 31, 2026.

New influx of Moroccans That day, tens of thousands of people arrived by sea and land from Morocco into Ceuta.

Spain estimated 50,000 arrivals, Ceuta’s regional government 60,000 and Morocco 40,000.

Spain said at least 72 people died , most from drowning.

Morocco reported 11 deaths , while the Moroccan Association for Human Rights said nearly 130 died .

United States President Donald Trump called the crossings an “invasion .” Online commentators, meanwhile, theorized that the U.S. and Israel had encouraged Morocco to punish the Spanish leader, whose government has become one of Israel’s harshest critics in Europe .

An Associated Press fact check found no evidence for the claim.

Most of those who crossed quickly went back.

Within a few hours, Spain said 48,300 people had returned to Morocco, and most of the rest followed within days.