At least 141 people have died during migrant crossings into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, while local authorities and the central government struggle to shelter hundreds of unaccompanied minors. <\/p>\n
At least 141 people died while attempting to cross into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, according to Spanish radio station Cadena SER on Wednesday morning. On the Spanish side, 78 people lost their lives, while local services retrieved 63 bodies from waters adjacent to Morocco.<\/p>\n
These estimates are based on official death tolls confirmed by Spanish authorities in Ceuta, as well as data gathered from hospital morgues by the NGO Caminando Fronteras, which analyzes statistics on the Moroccan side.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska stated that his services confirmed a total of 72,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta on July 30 and 31, adding that 70,000 of them have already returned to Morocco.<\/p>\n
Moroccan diplomatic sources, cited by Spanish agencies Europa Press and EFE, reported that Rabat warned Pedro Sanchez’s government of the potential influx days prior. The trigger may have been a July 8 Supreme Court ruling banning Spanish authorities from executing summary expulsions of African migrants arriving by sea in Ceuta and Melilla.<\/p>\n
Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles urged the Moroccan government to conduct a thorough investigation to fully clarify the causes of the migration crisis in Ceuta. Robles stated that responsibility for the deaths lies with “those who deceive people through mafias.”<\/p>\n
Authorities in Ceuta and the central government are also grappling with the issue of hundreds of unaccompanied minor migrants, as the local system is overloaded and opposition-governed regions refuse to accept the children.<\/p>\n
Under Spanish law, adult migrants can apply for international protection and are expelled if denied. However, the state is obligated to take care of unaccompanied minor migrants who have no legal guardians.<\/p>\n
Inclusion and Migration Minister Elma Saiz announced Tuesday that the government will provide autonomous Ceuta with an additional 25 million euros to care for the minor migrants who arrived during last week’s crisis.<\/p>\n
EFE reported that about 1,000 children and teenagers are staying in migrant minors’ centers, but an unknown number remain on the streets and surrounding hills. To ensure care, Ceuta authorities have prepared two halls near the border with Morocco capable of accommodating about 500 people.<\/p>\n
In this crisis situation, the authorities of the autonomous region can expect help from the central government in relocating children to centers in other regions, in accordance with a 2025 law.<\/p>\n
This solution is criticized by the opposition People’s Party (PP), which governs 11 of the 17 autonomous communities as well as Ceuta and Melilla. PP Secretary Miguel Tellado stated that this is Pedro Sanchez’s problem to solve, adding, “Let them leave the same way they came.”<\/p>\n
French daily “Le Monde” reported Tuesday that while videos and messages on internet platforms played a significant role in the influx of migrants to Ceuta, there is no evidence yet of an organized destabilization operation.<\/p>\n
The daily recalled that many Moroccans who reached Ceuta were guided by information and videos on social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, noting that such accounts have existed for years showing young people swimming across to Ceuta or bodies washing ashore.<\/p>\n
The spread of information on these popular accounts likely encouraged a snowball effect, according to “Le Monde,” which cautioned that much information and rumor is spread via WhatsApp in closed groups.<\/p>\n
The newspaper also noted Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok accounts with similar names and identical videos that sometimes cross-reference each other, suggesting a single entity manages multiple accounts.<\/p>\n
The French daily found no trace of coordinated, mass-distributed messages encouraging departures to Ceuta in recent days, noting such a campaign would be hard to miss on major platforms. TikTok declined to comment, and Meta did not respond prior to publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 141 people have died during migrant crossings into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, while local authorities and the central government struggle to shelter hundreds of unaccompanied minors. Tragic Toll of the Ceuta Border Crossings At least 141 people died while attempting to cross into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}