Spain sends troops to Ceuta as Italy moves on Schengen

The Spanish enclave of Ceuta, on the North African coast, saw the largest mass border crossing in its history overnight from Thursday into Friday, and Madrid answered by putting soldiers on the streets. The story looks distant from Belgrade only until you read what followed: Italy has asked for Spain to be suspended from Schengen, and every argument about who guards the Union’s external border eventually reaches the candidate countries of the Western Balkans, Serbia included.

More than 40,000 people in a single day

Spain’s Interior Ministry said on Friday, July 31, that more than 40,000 people had entered Ceuta by land and sea in roughly 24 hours. Estimates published later the same day ran as high as 60,000. Ceuta has about 83,000 residents, so even the lower figure meant the number of people in the city grew by more than half in one day.

The crossings began on Thursday, July 30, and did not stop all night. People came in three ways:

• swimming around the border fence from the Moroccan town of Fnideq, about five kilometres away
• from nearby Belyounech, where the distance to the Spanish shore is considerably shorter
• over the breakwater by the city beach at Tarajal, using inner tubes and other improvised floats

Most were young men and teenagers, among them unaccompanied minors. Thousands slept in Ceuta’s parks and on its pavements. When the flow was at its heaviest, 55 Civil Guard officers were holding the front line.

Rachid Sbihi, who heads the Civil Guard officers’ association in Ceuta, described what he was watching in two sentences: “People are still coming in. It’s chaotic.” David Gomez, secretary of the officers’ professional association, supplied the arithmetic behind that impression: “There are three or four times fewer active officers than would be needed.”

How many people died?

The death toll rose all through Friday and is not final. Early estimates spoke of nine dead. Official figures released on Friday morning put it at 18, then 19. After six more bodies were recovered the number reached 24, while police sources cited during the day mentioned as many as 34 deaths.

Some drowned while swimming. Others died in a crush on the breakwater at Tarajal, on the narrow stretch between the fence and the water, where the crowd packed in with nowhere to go.

Sanchez in Ceuta, a Supreme Court ruling as the trigger

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska travelled to Ceuta on Friday. The government had announced the previous evening that it was sending the armed forces to support the Civil Guard in keeping order in the city, with the message that “the Government of Spain stands with the city of Ceuta.”

Sanchez pointed to a ruling by Spain’s Supreme Court barring the immediate return of people who arrive by sea without a formal procedure. That ruling does not apply to land crossings.

What has come out of our conversations with the Moroccan authorities is that the human trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling.

That framing puts the blame on smuggling networks rather than on the ruling itself, a distinction that will matter once parliament starts arguing about changing the law. Juan Jesus Vivas, president of Ceuta’s city government, called the situation the city is going through absolutely unsustainable.

The return movement started on Friday, across the same breakwater. Hundreds set off back towards the Moroccan side, directed to the crossing point by soldiers. Madrid and Rabat agreed to step up bilateral coordination and speed up the return of those who entered illegally, and by Friday around 25,000 people had been sent back to Morocco.

Rome wants a suspension, Paris tightens its border

Italy has requested that Spain be suspended from Schengen, after which Madrid summoned the Italian ambassador. France reinforced its border with Spain, and Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said so himself: “Last night I gave instructions to immediately step up controls on the border with Spain.” Paris also mobilised Frontex’s rapid intervention unit for those checks.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the dangerous crossings must stop immediately and that smuggling networks must be dismantled.

The scale is clearest against the last big crisis at the same spot. In May 2021, during a diplomatic quarrel between Madrid and Rabat, about 10,000 people entered Ceuta, and that was then the largest known breach of that border. This time the official figure is four times higher, and unofficial estimates run to six.

For Belgrade, the part of this story still unfolding is the one in Brussels. Serbia sits inside the same external border machinery through its status agreement with Frontex, and any tightening of the rules inside Schengen tends to reach candidate countries, and the travel regime for their citizens, within a few months. The returns across the breakwater began on Friday, and neither side has said when they are meant to be finished.