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Spain announced Thursday it would send military reinforcements and naval assets to its north African enclave of Ceuta after more than 1,500 migrants crossed from Morocco in recent days, with hundreds more arriving Thursday by swimming around the territory's frontier barrier, prompting city authorities to declare a humanitarian emergency.
The interior ministry said the Armed Forces would reinforce the Civil Guard in Ceuta, nearly doubling the current contingent of 80 officers, without specifying the total number of troops to be deployed.
Diving teams and coastguard vessels will also be dispatched to the 18.5-square-kilometre territory.
Ceuta's regional president, Juan Vivas, described "a situation of total humanitarian and social emergency," warning that reception centres had been saturated with arrivals exceeding 200 people a day.
"There is no more room for anyone," he said. At least one person has died, according to city authorities.
Adults and children, most of them wet, were seen walking through Ceuta's streets after coming ashore near where the frontier barrier meets the sea, with discarded flotation rings and clothes left behind on the beach.
Some arrivals called out, "Bye bye, Morocco, hello Spain," as they made their way through the city. Police and Civil Guards largely did not intervene, though some officers directed new arrivals toward the local reception centre.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said his government was "focused on providing an immediate response to the crisis in Ceuta," adding that authorities were mobilising all necessary resources and working with Moroccan and international authorities.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska was announced to travel to Ceuta on Friday to monitor the situation directly.
The interior ministry said Spain and Morocco would implement measures to transfer to Morocco, "as soon as possible," all individuals who had entered Ceuta without authorisation.
The ministry also underscored what it called Spain's "exemplary cooperation" with Morocco on migration matters, attributing the surge in crossings to human-trafficking networks.
A foreign ministry source dismissed suggestions that Sanchez's recent visit to Algeria, with which Morocco has a long-standing dispute over Western Sahara, had any bearing on the current situation, insisting bilateral relations were "not at all affected" by the trip. Moroccan authorities did not comment publicly on the crossings.
On the Moroccan side of the border Thursday, hundreds of people, including children, were seen gathered near the town of Fnideq, waiting to cross into the Spanish territory.
Some said they had come after hearing rumours that the border would be opened Thursday morning. The wave of crossings coincided with Morocco's Throne Day, a major national holiday.
Migration from Morocco into Ceuta and Melilla, Spain's two north African enclaves and the European Union's only land borders with Africa, has long been a source of political tension between Madrid and Rabat, with large-scale crossings recurring periodically over the years.
One Ceuta resident expressed anguish at the scenes unfolding in the city.
"It really breaks my heart to see so many people suffering," he said, before questioning what awaited those who arrived: "When they get here, they're faced with the harsh reality that they have nothing, and that people treat them as if they were nobody."
The crisis drew immediate fire from Spain's right-wing opposition. Popular Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo said the government "cannot look the other way regarding its duties," describing the situation as a national security crisis.
Far-right Vox party leader Santiago Abascal went further, holding Sanchez personally responsible for the influx.
Ceuta, with a population of roughly 85,000, sits on a narrow peninsula on Morocco's northern coast.
Its geographic position has made it a persistent focal point for irregular migration, with crossings spiking at various intervals over the past two decades, driven by poverty, instability across sub-Saharan Africa, and the prospect of access to European Union territory.
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