Sanchez Admits 10-Hour Border Opening Amid 72,000 Ceuta Crossings

Spain's prime minister walked into parliament to admit what his own police had already put in writing, and then to deny what that admission seemed to imply. Moroccan gendarmes, Pedro Sanchez conceded, let people pass into Ceuta for about ten hours in late July. ¹³ Yet there is, he insisted, no solid proof that Rabat planned the rush. ¹⁶ It is absurd, he told the Congress of Deputies, to think that the government knew and did nothing. ¹⁴ That sentence is the whole crisis in miniature: a ten-hour opening acknowledged, an orchestration denied, and a neighbor who must be both witness and partner.

By Sanchez's own figure, 72,000 people entered the enclave by the end of July. ¹⁴ No one, he said, foresaw an influx on that scale. ¹⁴ The number dwarfs anything Spain has confronted at this fence. The 2021 rush, when thousands swam around breakwaters, walked at low tide or paddled in inflatable boats toward El Tarajal beach, is remembered as about 8,000 entering, though some later accounts put it near 10,000 and the sources still disagree. ^{6 9 10} This year is roughly nine times that size, compressed in the official account into a single permissive window rather than the two days of crossings seen in May 2021. ⁶

The restraint is not confusion. It is policy. By declining to accuse Morocco, Sanchez secured the return of roughly 90 percent of the Moroccans who crossed, preserving cooperation with the same government whose border guards he says stood aside. ¹ IE University professor Alana Morseri gave the strategy its bluntest name. Blame a window of permissiveness, not the host, because Rabat controls the returns and Madrid needs them.

The human cost now shadows that calculation. The death toll from the crossings has risen to 141, a figure raised as Sanchez faced a fierce parliamentary grilling over the deadly crossing and Morocco's alleged role. ¹⁷ Ceuta's president, Juan Jesus Vivas, who earlier described 100 deaths as an irreparable tragedy, told the European Parliament of his profound sorrow. ²⁶ What remains in the city is itself disputed. Some reports put those still there near 5,000, including about 1,200 unaccompanied minors, while separate authorities cite more than 10,000 still stranded in early September. ^{26 27} Vivas had earlier estimated 3,000 to 5,000 remained on 6 August, with more than 1,000 unaccompanied minors among them. ^{26 27} On 1 September a large group crowded outside the Loma del Colmenar reception centre waiting for admission. ²²

The streets answered before parliament did. Tens of thousands protested across Spain over the handling of the influx, with large crowds in Madrid and at least 20,000 in Ceuta alone, and opposition parties are calling for resignation. ^{28 23} Hundreds of rallies were planned nationwide in solidarity with Ceuta, while Ceuta residents appealed for calm on 2 September. ²⁵ That date matters locally: the enclave's 2 September annual holiday, ordinarily ignored by mainland Spain, became this year the backdrop to the country's worst border crisis in living memory. ²⁸

The opposition's charge goes beyond a slow response. Lawmakers allege Spanish police and intelligence warned the government two days before a movement of roughly 80,000 people arriving by truck, and that Moroccan police were directly involved. Sanchez rejects the claim, defends that there were no extraordinary warnings that would have allowed anticipating the magnitude of the crisis, and has committed to investigate and to publish all reports, insisting there is nothing to hide. ^{12 20} He also dismisses the separate police claim that Morocco instigated the crisis, while refusing to blame Rabat but reaffirming Madrid's sovereignty over its North African cities. ¹³ A Spanish police report described Moroccan officers showing total permissiveness and directing migrants toward the water during the late-July rush. ¹³

Europe is now part of the standoff. The EU is withholding assistance pending answers, with the European Commission and Spanish MEP Antonio Lopez involved. ¹ The parallel to 2021 is direct and uncomfortable. Then, after the hospital treatment in Spain of a Western Sahara independence leader helped spark the stand-off, Morocco resumed control only after public and private calls from the EU and foreign ministries across Europe, while Spain deployed troops to El Tarajal beach to patrol the border and vowed to restore order. ^{5 11} Hundreds of minors remained in limbo after the border was re-controlled. ² The precedent shows pressure can work. It also shows how quickly migration control becomes diplomacy for the disputed enclaves.

Symbolism has returned with it. Sanchez proposed that King Felipe VI visit Ceuta and Melilla, a reaffirmation of Spanish sovereignty over cities whose status Morocco disputes. ¹ At home the government says right-wing parties are exploiting the crisis, while opposition parties accuse Sanchez of abandoning the residents of Ceuta. ²⁵ He has been criticised for blaming trafficking gangs and social media for the crisis. ¹⁴ On disinformation, the account notes Russia and Israel amplified, but did not initiate, viral posts about the crossings, a theory linked to a Supreme Court misinformation case involving trafficking networks but so far unproven. ¹

With a 2027 election horizon and right-wing attacks intensifying, the political cost is already being paid. ¹ The open question is not whether the gate stood open. Sanchez says it did. It is whether the inquiry will show someone opened it on purpose, and whether a prime minister who traded accusation for returns can survive the answer.