Pedro Sánchez welcomes the strengthening of the Moroccan border system around Ceuta

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez welcomed on Wednesday the measures taken by Morocco to strengthen its system on the border with Ceuta, the day after new calls launched on social networks to reach this Spanish enclave located in North Africa. “Yesterday, we saw a very significant deployment of (Moroccan) police forces, both at the Ceuta border and at the Melilla border, following alerts appearing on social networks,” noted the socialist leader during a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. “We have to recognize it,” he admitted, a few hours after an interview with the left-wing mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani.

On Tuesday, in an interview with CNN, the Spanish Prime Minister blamed the recent migration crisis in Ceuta on a failure of Moroccan border controls. Speaking before Parliament on September 3, the head of the Spanish government indicated that Madrid must ask the Moroccan authorities for “explanations and changes” in order to prevent the influx of migrants into Ceuta from happening again. However, he was keen to emphasize that there was no “solid evidence” indicating that Morocco had orchestrated this event.

Skip the ad

Domestically, Pedro Sánchez was strongly criticized by the right-wing and far-right opposition for alleged leniency towards Rabat after these unprecedented events, which also caused a diplomatic crisis within the European Union. On July 30 and 31, more than 70,000 migrants entered Ceuta, swimming or on foot from Morocco, in a massive influx during which several dozen of them died, mainly at sea, according to authorities in Madrid and Rabat. Since then, most of these migrants have returned to Morocco. However, several thousand remain in Ceuta, where the situation has since deteriorated, giving rise to violence and almost daily demonstrations by residents.