Hundreds of Migrants Are Swimming from Morocco to the Spanish Territory of Ceuta

By RENATA BRITO

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Hundreds of migrants are swimming from Morocco to the tiny Spanish territory of Ceuta at the country’s northern tip, overwhelming border security, local authorities said Wednesday.

While good weather usually brings a surge in migrant crossings by sea in the summer, Ceuta authorities said the current number of swimmers is unusual.

“In the last few days, more than 1,500 migrants, including adults and minors, have reached Ceuta by sea,” the leader of Ceuta’s government, Juan Jesús Vivas, told journalists. “The reception centers are collapsed and saturated.”

Vivas said migrants previously died in the attempt, with 60 bodies being spotted at sea in the last year.

Spain’s interior ministry, which oversees borders and tracks irregular migration, would not confirm the number of crossings or say how many migrants had reached the territory by swimming. It referred journalists to its bimonthly migration report, with the next one expected on Aug. 3.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, in an interview with Spanish television channel laSexta, acknowledged authorities were facing “an extraordinary, exceptional situation.” He asserted that “we are dealing with it with the means that we already have deployed there permanently.”

Spain’s Civil Guard, maritime Rescue Services and even the Red Cross have been using boats to pick up swimmers before taking them to Ceuta. Hundreds of migrants are now sleeping outside a migrant reception center that is over capacity.

Those attempting the crossing are mainly Moroccans, along with a small number of Algerians who had been living in Morocco while trying to migrate to Europe, according to activists in Morocco and Ceuta.

It was not clear what prompted so many migrants to swim to Ceuta.

Vivas lamented a Spanish Supreme Court ruling that earlier this month established that migrants who arrive by sea cannot be immediately pushed back across the border without due process, unlike those who cross into Spain by land — by climbing over the border fence, for example.

But some activists including Omar Naji, president of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights in Eastern Morocco, expressed doubt that the ruling was behind the surge. Most Moroccans would have been unaware of such legal decisions, he said.

The timing of the crossing, occurring after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez met with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune last week, reminded Naji of the border crisis of May 2021 when more than 8,000 migrants poured into Ceuta in just two days.

At the time, Morocco was accused of easing border controls and allowing migrants to cross into the enclave after Spain allowed Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali to receive medical treatment at a Spanish hospital, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Rabat and Madrid. The pro-independence Polisario Front for decades has claimed to be the legitimate representative of the indigenous Sahrawi people of disputed Western Sahara.

On Wednesday, Spain’s interior minister praised Moroccan authorities, saying they were cooperating and that the relationship with the kingdom was “close and based on loyalty.”

“They are also limiting irregular departures,” he told laSexta.

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AP journalist Akram Oubachir in Casablanca, Morocco, contributed to this report.