Moroccans Stranded on Ceuta Streets After Chaotic Border Crossing

Four days ago, Youssef El Abbas, 44, a father of four, saw a chance to reclaim the life he lost seven years earlier. News spread that about 400 people had swum from Morocco to Ceuta, the Spanish territory on North Africa's coast, some 19 kilometers from mainland Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar.

El Abbas took a taxi to Tétouan, the city south of Ceuta. Along the way, he saw Facebook posts and news saying Moroccan authorities were letting people through the border. Unlike the migrants of the night before, he only needed to walk across the border and then swim about five minutes from Moroccan territory to Spanish territory to avoid Spanish border controls.

When he reached Tétouan, El Abbas found the city completely overwhelmed. "Young men ran through the streets, flooding every corner," he said. When a second taxi took him to Fnideq, the town bordering Ceuta, he noticed that the checkpoints and barriers that usually kept those without European papers from the border had been dismantled.

"Moroccan police shouted at us: 'Go, go, go! Run, run into Spain,'" he said. "The night before, they had beaten people. But that morning, they let us through. Nothing makes sense."

Despite the dense crowd, El Abbas noticed police letting only Moroccans through. "All sub-Saharan migrants were pushed back by force." He reached the border at 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday. By 3 p.m., after a short swim, he stood on Spanish soil. Not everyone was so lucky.

"In just 10 minutes in the water, I saw four dead bodies floating in Moroccan waters," he said. "People pulled their bodies out." They were among at least 72 people who drowned or were crushed trying to reach Spanish territory.

El Abbas is one of around 50,000 people who surged into Ceuta this week, in an event Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called "a violation of Spain's territorial integrity." Madrid blamed the influx on "people-smuggling gangs" exploiting a ruling by Spain's Supreme Court, which recently ruled that those intercepted at sea trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla—Spain's other North African territory—could not be immediately deported under special provisions.

There was also speculation that Morocco's government opened the border to show displeasure at Sánchez's recent visit to Algeria, which backs efforts to liberate the disputed Western Sahara from Moroccan occupation. Morocco's ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich Millán, said Rabat was not happy about the mass crossing and hoped those in Ceuta would return.

A Moroccan government source told Europa Press that the wave into Ceuta was due to "criminal organizations" and stressed cooperation between Rabat and Madrid remained "exemplary." In May 2021, Rabat had loosened border controls, allowing 10,000 people to surge into Ceuta in two days amid diplomatic tensions after Madrid allowed a Western Sahara separatist leader to receive COVID-19 treatment in Spain.

El Abbas said he had never stopped dreaming of returning to Spain, where he worked mostly in restaurants and hotels for 14 years. Since being deported to Morocco in 2019, he has lived apart from his wife and four daughters—who remain in Bilbao—and struggled with repairing phones alongside his father to make a living. "I never stopped thinking about going back," he said. "In Morocco, I live, but I don't really live."

The return had a bitter taste. When he swam ashore in Ceuta, a Spanish Civil Guard officer reached out a hand to pull him up. But that helping gesture later turned violent. Three days after arriving, his group was surrounded and beaten by an army patrol. "The same hand that pulled me from the water was the hand that beat me afterward," he said.

El Abbas's story is not unique. Though more than 48,000 people had returned to Morocco by Friday evening, hundreds still slept in parks, squares, and on sidewalks, waiting for their next chance or simply seeking rest. It seemed nearly impossible for migrants to leave Ceuta for mainland Spain.

Said, 17, from Casablanca, sat on the curb a few hundred meters away. He had joined the crowd heading to Ceuta when he heard the border was open. But joy had given way to reality, and all he had was a bottle of water and a yogurt given by a local resident.

The teen said after crossing the border, he was taken to a center for unaccompanied minors, but there was no room, so he was back on the street. According to an unnamed soldier, the current government procedure—involving military, police, and Civil Guard—is to treat unaccompanied minors as regular migrants and return them to Morocco. Said and other teens said no one would sell them food or let them into shops or restaurants because they didn't speak Spanish.

Three days after the mass influx, Ceuta is slowly trying to restore a sense of normality. On Saturday afternoon, cafes began to fill again, and many shops opened. Many of those who arrived in Ceuta are being cared for by locals, who walk the streets handing out water, sandwiches, blankets, and clothes. Some stop to ask if help is needed or offer to call relatives.

This solidarity is being threatened by the arrival of far-right politicians and a neo-Nazi group, all eager to exploit the humanitarian crisis for their own ends. "They will use our emotions to take credit and say they protect Ceuta," said a local woman named Malika. "We don't want them here. If they want to protect something, they should go elsewhere."

Malika, born in Ceuta to a Spanish military father, rejected the idea that the city should be defined solely by the political confrontation after the migrant wave. But she also acknowledged the pressure on a city of just over 80,000 residents. "It's an impossible situation for any city," she said.

Fatima Hamed Hossain, a member of the Ceuta city council, fears the crisis has deepened divisions within the city. "Everything we go through creates tension between neighbors," she said. "That's what plays into the hands of the far right."

As a group of people trudged back across the border, Said looked to the future. His goal was simple: find a place in a shelter, spend the next year learning Spanish, and when he turns 18, get a job as a barber. His biggest fear was ending up without legal papers and his plans crumbling before they began. Leaving was not part of his plan. "All I need," he said, "is a chance."