France and Italy tightened up their border barriers on 1st August after some 60,000 migrants crossed into Spain’s North African enclave, one of the biggest migratory crises in recent years for the European Union.

More than 48,000 migrants were repatriated by Friday evening, according to the regional president of the Moroccan enclave of Ceuta, Juan Jesus Vivas, who told reporters the migrants had come from Morocco.

Many swam around a small barrier at the border, which juts out into the Mediterranean to cross into Ceuta. 

The Spanish government on Saturday reported 67 deaths. Some of those drowned, some were killed in a stampede to cross a breakwater barrier.

The unexpected flood triggered an international crisis.

France beefed up security along its border with Spain and announced a fivefold increase in the number of officers and gendarmes to 334 by Saturday.

Italy has said it suspended its Schengen visa-free agreement with Spain.

The suspension will be in effect from Saturday and for a period of one month, Italian officials said.

The move to suspend Spain’s membership in the Schengen free movement zone, which allows the easy movement of people between 26 European Union nations, was recommended by several European countries, but Spain’s foreign minister indicated that the integrity of the zone would be “guaranteed”.

The US President, Donald Trump, was chief among the far right in the Atlantic on capitalising on the crossing to push for hardline immigration policies across the Atlantic.

‘Trafficking mafias’

Madrid rushed troops, more police, drones, divers and boats to the outpost that it has run for centuries as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his interior minister visited on Friday.

AFP journalists spent the night in the city observing groups of young people roaming around the beaches and streets of Ceuta. There were dozens of men on the sand, sleeping.

There were a great many police and military personnel, and some youth were observed turning around, waving “adios” or “goodbyes” to the police when crossing the border into Morocco.

Annual festivals were cancelled, and shops closed within the city.

The previous migrant drives have been during periods of tension between Spain and Morocco.

Sanchez visited Algiers on July 20 – the first such visit by a Spanish head of government in four years – marking a thaw in relations with Morocco’s rival Algeria.

However, it was uncertain whether the visit had anything to do with this latest wave.

In Ceuta, Sanchez pointed fingers at traffickers of people who have been spreading rumours that the Spanish Supreme Court ruled this month that the irregular migrants could not be immediately deported.

The result of our conversations with Moroccan authorities has been clear, he said: “Trafficking mafias took a self-serving reading from a Supreme Court order.”

Diplomatic fallout

Diplomatic reaction to fears over the crowds entering EU member countries.

EU’s chief, Ursula von der Leyen, described the scenes at Ceuta as “unacceptable”.

“We cannot allow anyone to come to our (European) Union without abiding by our rules,” she said on social media.

The Nordic countries of Finland and Denmark on Friday backed Italy’s actions, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for Morocco “to immediately repatriate illegal migrants”.

France and Britain said they were on standby to assist Spain with the unexpected upswing, despite France’s strengthening of its border controls.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro indicated that he was thinking about strengthening the border controls, but that he did not need to suspend Spain from the Schengen zone.

Trump, meanwhile, cautioned, “It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people. And that’s what’s going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected, but it’s going to be worse, much worse.”

Spain’s Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Albares, sought to put out the fire, declaring that it was “not possible to travel from Ceuta and Melilla to the Peninsula without identifying oneself at a police checkpoint”, both of which are North African outposts belonging to Spain.

“It’s time to set the record straight.”

Successive crises

The two land border enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla (the latter is nearby) are the only two land borders between Europe and Africa.

So far, there is no official statement from Morocco’s authorities regarding the migrants’ movement.

In 2021, the figure of over 10,000 migrants arriving in Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco over two days was achieved during a similar wave of arrivals; however, this occurred after a diplomatic row between the two nations.

The row came to a head when Spain opted to bring in for medical treatment a Polisario Front leader with whom its guerrilla army waged a protracted war for the independence of the Western Sahara region.