Spain and Morocco have tightened security around Ceuta, Spain’s North African enclave, as fresh social media appeals urge Moroccan migrants to attempt another coordinated border crossing following a July surge that overwhelmed local authorities.
By Friday, soldiers were stationed near commercial districts and government offices across the city, while police reinforcements were visible along Ceuta’s main roads, Reuters reported.
Across the border in Morocco, security forces dressed in black patrolled beaches in Fnideq, a key departure point used by migrants who entered Ceuta illegally on July 30 during a mass movement that brought more than 70,000 people into the enclave from Morocco.
The expanded security measures came after online posts called on Moroccans to push into Ceuta again on Saturday, as well as into Melilla, Spain’s other enclave on the African continent.
Moroccan security forces clash with migrants attempting to cross into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta near the town of Fnideq, on the Morocco-Spain border, on July 31, 2026. (Abdel Majid Bziouat / AFP via Getty Images)
“The Ministry of the Interior has detected, during the last few days, the circulation of anonymous publications and messages on certain social networks inciting the organization of attempts at collective and illegal crossing to the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, practices which carry serious risks to the safety of people and aim to instrumentalize migration issues in acts of incitement, which are criminalized by law,” Morocco’s Interior Ministry said in a statement published by MAP, the country’s state-affiliated news agency.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Rachid El Khalfi said Moroccan authorities had arrested several people accused of spreading the messages encouraging the attempted crossings.
The ministry also urged Spain to keep cooperating on efforts to return Moroccan migrants who remain in Ceuta to Morocco.
Migrants run and cheer as they cross on foot into the North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, after swimming over from the Moroccan side and overwhelming police at the city’s breakwater, according to Spain’s Guardia Civil, in Ceuta, Spain, July 30, 2026. (FARO TV via Reuters)
Of the more than 72,000 migrants who rushed the border, the vast majority have returned to Morocco, according to statements from Spain and Ceuta’s government. About 5,000 remain, Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters Friday.
Spanish officials have been screening the remaining migrants and have processed roughly 500 asylum seekers’ cases, rejecting the vast majority of them, Reuters reported.
Spain has also installed floating barriers in the waters where migrants had previously swam across.
Members of the Royal Moroccan Navy patrol on the Moroccan side of the floating barrier off the border with Morocco, following mass crossings of migrants on foot and by sea from Morocco into Spanish territory, as seen from Ceuta, Spain, August 2, 2026. (REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura/File Photo)
At least 96 people died during the mass migration event.
News Outlet contacted the governments of Spain, Morocco and Ceuta for further comment.
