Spain Deploys Military Against Migrants in Ceuta

Spain has deployed its armed forces to restore order along the border between the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa and Morocco, as thousands of migrants attempt to enter the city illegally.

According to Reuters, the move was approved after Ceuta’s local authorities requested reinforcements from the central government in Madrid to help manage the border crisis, which escalated on July 30.

The government said that 200 special police officers and 60 military personnel had been deployed from mainland Spain to reinforce the city’s regular security forces.

According to Spain’s Civil Guard, 49,000 Moroccan migrants have already entered Ceuta. By comparison, the city has a population of 84,000 residents.

The incident occurred just weeks after Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that the legal procedure known as Summary Return cannot be applied to migrants apprehended while attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla by sea. Instead, they must be processed under the standard immigration procedure.

Spain’s Ministry of the Interior said that migrant-smuggling networks had taken advantage of the ruling to encourage sea crossings.

The Moroccan government has not made any public comments regarding the crisis, and Morocco’s Ministry of the Interior did not respond to requests for comment.

This situation has a precedent in the May 2021 border crisis, when more than 8,000 irregular migrants arrived in Ceuta over the course of two days.

Hybrid operations involving the use of large groups of migrants to destabilize a country’s internal situation have also been employed by Russia. In particular, there have been documented attempts by migrants to cross into Poland and Lithuania from the territory of Belarus.