Around 49,000 migrants have arrived in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in northern Africa, opposite Gibraltar, from Morocco by land and sea, the BBC reports.
Video and images show thousands of people swimming into the city on the 30th of July, and local media reported that the flow of migrants continued into the night of Friday, the 31st of July. The mass movement of migrants to Ceuta began after Spain’s Supreme Court ruled in July that migrants intercepted at sea on their way to Ceuta or another Spanish enclave, Melilla, could not be immediately sent back to Morocco.
After a recent surge in attempts to cross the border, local officials asked Madrid for help, but on the 30th of July the situation turned chaotic and border controls were broken. Spain then sent the army to Ceuta to help maintain order there and in Melilla, where 300 to 400 attempts to cross the border overnight were also reported.
Spanish officials estimate that
the number of migrants who have arrived in Ceuta in the past 24 hours is almost as large as half of its population,
which according to the latest figures is around 83,600 people. About 7,000 of those who crossed the border in the past 24 hours are minors.
Spain’s Interior Ministry said it was working with Morocco to return all those who entered Spanish territory illegally to their countries of origin as soon as possible.
If the estimates are correct, this could be the largest number of migrants since May 2021, when more than 10,000 people arrived in Ceuta illegally.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is scheduled to visit the city on the 31st of July.
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