Spain returned the great majority of the people who crossed from Morocco into Ceuta on 30 and 31 July 2026 within about three days. By 2 August most were back on Moroccan soil. The Spanish government says the returns were voluntary. The Moroccan Association for Human Rights, which spoke with some of those returned, says Spanish security forces carried out collective forced returns with no individual assessment of the people involved.
Ceuta is a Spanish city on the North African coast, bordered by Morocco, and one of the European Union’s two land borders on the African continent. An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 people crossed into it over those two days, a scale without precedent there. Spanish authorities said at least 72 people died, many of them drowning while trying to swim from Morocco to Ceuta, others crushed while trying to climb a border barrier.
The dispute over consent
The gap between the two accounts is legal, not rhetorical. A voluntary return requires the consent of the person returned; a lawful return of any kind requires that anyone seeking protection be heard individually before removal. The Moroccan Association for Human Rights says neither condition was met for the people it interviewed.
Who crossed
According to the same association, most of those who crossed were Moroccan nationals, alongside people from Sudan, Yemen and several West and North African countries. Reports indicate many were moving for economic reasons, while others were asylum seekers, including people who had fled the conflict in Sudan.
Allegations of force
The association also alleges that some residents of Ceuta used violence against those arriving, and that Spanish and Moroccan forces used unnecessary force against people reaching Ceuta or attempting to leave the Moroccan border town of Beni Ansar.
A border with a record
The frontiers of Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s other North African enclave, are among the most heavily fortified stretches of the EU’s external border, and have repeatedly seen violence or excessive force by Moroccan and Spanish security forces, as well as collective expulsions by Spanish authorities. In 2014, at least 15 people died in the waters off Ceuta when Spain’s Civil Guard fired rubber bullets and tear gas at people trying to swim to Spanish territory. In June 2022, at least 23 African men died at the Melilla-Morocco border amid the use of force and riot-control tactics on both sides.
Calls following the July crossings centre on independent and impartial investigations into the circumstances of the crossings and into the allegations of excessive force, and on prioritising humane treatment and relief for those who arrived.
This report was produced by the HuMedia newsroom.
