In late July 2026, an estimated 80,000 people, mainly young men originating from Morocco, illegally breached and crossed the border from Morocco into the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta in North Africa, with smaller numbers attempting to cross to Melilla, another Spanish autonomous city about 400 kilometres (250 mi) away along the Mediterranean coastline. This overwhelmed local reception facilities, and also prompted the government of Ceuta to request that the Spanish government declare a national emergency. Most entered by swimming around the breakwaters of Tarajal and Benzú or by crossing on foot along the shoreline.
The crisis followed the decision in January 2026 by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the PSOE to introduce a mass regularisation programme for migrants who had been living illegally in Spain, including many of Moroccan origin. Sánchez's decision, which the opposition criticised at the time as unconstitutional and unlawful, was later identified by the heads of state from 22 of the EU’s remaining 26 member states as a "pull factor" leading to the Ceuta crisis.
The European Commission stated that those who enter the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla irregularly will not be able to enter mainland Europe through the Schengen Area. However, the Sánchez government said it intended to transfer 500 unaccompanied migrant girls from Ceuta to mainland Spain—ignoring the European Commission.
By 3 August, Spanish government officials said about 70,000 people had voluntarily returned to Morocco. Thousands, largely from sub-Saharan Africa, have been estimated to still be remaining in Ceuta. By 3–4 August, at least 111 migrants were reported to have died as a result of the incident. After initially rejecting offers of operational and legal assistance from the European Union, Spain asked Frontex to assist with the screening of migrants who remained in Ceuta on 28 August. Thousands of migrants, including many children, remained in Ceuta as of early September, causing a crisis in the city. According to Spanish ministers, despite earlier promises, the government plans to welcome "most" of the illegal migrant children to Spain rather than return them.
On 2 September on Ceuta Day, tens of thousands of people across Spain joined mass protests against Sánchez in support of the city of Ceuta.
In late July 2026, an estimated 80,000 people, mainly young men originating from Morocco, illegally breached and crossed the border from Morocco into the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta in North Africa, with smaller numbers attempting to cross to Melilla, another Spanish autonomous city about 400 kilometres (250 mi) away along the Mediterranean coastline. This overwhelmed local reception facilities, and also prompted the government of Ceuta to request that the Spanish government declare a national emergency. Most entered by swimming around the breakwaters of Tarajal and Benzú or by crossing on foot along the shoreline.
The crisis followed the decision in January 2026 by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the PSOE to introduce a mass regularisation programme for migrants who had been living illegally in Spain, including many of Moroccan origin. Sánchez's decision, which the opposition criticised at the time as unconstitutional and unlawful, was later identified by the heads of state from 22 of the EU’s remaining 26 member states as a "pull factor" leading to the Ceuta crisis.
The European Commission stated that those who enter the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla irregularly will not be able to enter mainland Europe through the Schengen Area. However, the Sánchez government said it intended to transfer 500 unaccompanied migrant girls from Ceuta to mainland Spain—ignoring the European Commission.
By 3 August, Spanish government officials said about 70,000 people had voluntarily returned to Morocco. Thousands, largely from sub-Saharan Africa, have been estimated to still be remaining in Ceuta. By 3–4 August, at least 111 migrants were reported to have died as a result of the incident. After initially rejecting offers of operational and legal assistance from the European Union, Spain asked Frontex to assist with the screening of migrants who remained in Ceuta on 28 August. Thousands of migrants, including many children, remained in Ceuta as of early September, causing a crisis in the city. According to Spanish ministers, despite earlier promises, the government plans to welcome "most" of the illegal migrant children to Spain rather than return them.
On 2 September on Ceuta Day, tens of thousands of people across Spain joined mass protests against Sánchez in support of the city of Ceuta.
Background
Morocco–Spain border
Ceuta and Melilla are two autonomous cities of Spain located on the north coast of Africa. These Spanish cities (along with Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera) form the European Union's only external land border in Africa. Ceuta and Melilla have a special regime, under which travellers from the cities to mainland Spain and the rest of the Schengen area are subject to border controls. Under a special condition of the Schengen Agreement, border checks are done on exit from the cities – no one can travel from Ceuta or Melilla to mainland Spain without being identified by the National Police at the port or the airport. Morocco claims sovereignty over both cities, while Spain regards them as having been an integral part of its national territory since 1400. Ceuta was conquered by the Portuguese in 1415 and only became a Spanish territory de facto in 1640; that year, Portugal regained its independence from the Spanish crown. Ceuta decided to remain as part of the Spanish kingdom instead of Portugal.
Their location has repeatedly made them focal points for migrant entry into Spain and the wider EU, although in most years the majority of such arrivals to Spain have come via maritime routes to the Canary Islands rather than through Ceuta or Melilla. Practically, the flow of people across the border is controlled by the governments of both Spain and Morocco. Morocco has periodically exerted political pressure on Spain by temporarily increasing the border's permeability, as with a previous migration wave in 2021. Prior to the 2026 incident, it had been suggested that US–Spain tensions and Morocco's growing alignment with the US and Israel created a geopolitical opportunity for Morocco to further assert its claim on the territories.
Moroccans are generally driven to migrate due to dissatisfaction with the country's economy, public services, its politics and governance. A 2024 survey found that 35% of Moroccans wanted to emigrate from the country, with 45% citing economic reasons as the main factor, 18% education opportunities and 15% corruption. Youth unemployment was almost 40% in 2025. Morocco has high levels of inequality, and between 2019 and 2022, inequality and poverty increased. In September and October 2025, large scale youth protests took place over poor public services, socio-economic conditions in the country and corruption. Morocco's politics is dominated by its king and its powerful elite class, and freedom of expression and protest are restricted. Climate change is another major factor. Drought was identified as a major problem by 44% of young Moroccans. North Africa is warming much faster than the average.
Prior border incidents
The main precedent for the 2026 crisis was the May 2021 border incident, during which around 8,000 people entered Ceuta from over the border within two days, most by swimming around the breakwaters, and among whom were numerous unaccompanied minors. That episode followed a diplomatic crisis triggered by Spain's hospitalisation of Brahim Ghali, secretary-general of the Polisario Front (an armed resistance group to Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara), who was treated in northern Spain (at the Hospital San Pedro in Logroño) for COVID-19; Spain had not issued a prior notice to Morocco. The initially limited response of Moroccan security forces was widely interpreted in Spain as a form of diplomatic pressure. It exposed the limits of Ceuta's reception capacity and Spain's dependence on Moroccan border cooperation.
On 24 June 2022, around 2,000 migrants and asylum seekers gathered in the early hours of the day to cross the Melilla border fence; 23 migrants and asylum seekers were killed after a crowd crush during a conflict with Moroccan and Spanish security forces. Collective attempts to enter by land and sea continued in subsequent years. In August 2024, several hundred people attempted to reach Ceuta by swimming around the breakwaters, taking advantage of fog. The following month, Moroccan authorities deployed a large security operation to prevent a mass crossing that had been organised via social media, which had urged thousands of young people to gather near the border and attempt to enter Spanish territory together. In July 2025, at least 54 unaccompanied minors and around 30 adults reached Ceuta by swimming from Morocco, again exploiting poor visibility.
Mass regularisation and Supreme Court ruling
In January 2026, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the PSOE announced a mass regularisation programme for migrants who had been living illegally in Spain; more than one million people primarily of Latin American and Moroccan origin subsequently applied, exceeding government projections by roughly a quarter. The move was criticised at the time by the opposition as unconstitutional and unlawful. On 1 August 2026, 22 European Union heads of government, led by the governments of Italy and Denmark, wrote to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, describing Spain's regularisation scheme as a potential "pull factor" contributing to the Ceuta border crisis. On the same day, Sánchez also wrote to EU institutions criticising the positions of governments that had called for Spain to be excluded from the Schengen Area and describing those positions as contrary to European and humanitarian law and the principle of solidarity. On 4 August, European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said that the EU could not see a direct link at that point between Spain's regularisation plan and the events in Ceuta.
The Supreme Court of Spain ruled, on 29 June 2026, that the legal procedure known as summary return ("hot return", regulated under the tenth additional provision of Organic Law 4/2000) could not be applied to migrants intercepted while attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla by sea, requiring instead the use of the ordinary immigration procedure. The case arose from an Algerian national who had been intercepted at sea in 2024 and handed straight back to Moroccan authorities without the ordinary return procedure being followed. The court found that summary return could only apply to people attempting to breach the physical containment elements of the land perimeters of Ceuta and Melilla, such as border fences, and that surveillance systems like cameras or drones did not by themselves qualify as such barriers.
In July 2026, many social media posts in Morocco encouraged crossings of the border into Spain and offered practical advice for prospective migrants. False claims that the border was effectively open and misrepresentations of the Spanish Supreme Court ruling circulated widely. Human smuggling groups exploited the situation, and made offers via posts on Facebook and WhatsApp to help facilitate border crossings.
Sánchez's visit to Algeria in July
As in 2021, the 2026 Ceuta incident has been linked to the dispute over the political status of Western Sahara. Algeria and Morocco have strained relations because Algeria opposes Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara and supports the Sahrawi Polisario Front independence movement. In 2022, Algeria suspended its friendship treaty with Spain because Spain reversed its decades-long neutrality in the Western Sahara conflict by endorsing Morocco's autonomy proposal for the annexation of the territory. After four years of frozen relations, Spain and Algeria reconciled, with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visiting Algeria on 20 July 2026.
Course of events
Rise in sea arrivals
In late July 2026, there was a sustained increase in irregular entries into Ceuta from nearby Moroccan localities, often by swimming around the Tarajal and Benzú breakwaters, while some arrived by small boats. Between 20 and 29 July, around 1,500 people arrived in the city, an abnormally high figure for such a short period. The overwhelming majority were young men of Moroccan nationality; however, a few women and Algerian migrants who had previously been in Morocco were also identified, alongside numerous unaccompanied minors and some families with children. Spain's Interior Ministry stated that migrant-smuggling networks had exploited the June Supreme Court ruling to encourage sea crossings. Humanitarian organisations noted that sea crossings had been occurring for months and years beforehand.
On 30 July, Juan Jesús Vivas, the city's mayor-president, requested the Spanish government to declare a national emergency, but was refused by the interior ministry. Reception centres, particularly those for unaccompanied minors, exceeded capacity, leaving thousands of migrants without accommodation. Vivas said facilities for foreign unaccompanied minors were operating at around 2,400% of their ordinary capacity and that roughly a thousand adults remained outside the Temporary Immigrant Reception Centre or had been placed in provisional accommodation. The Civil Guard, National Police Corps, Maritime Safety and Rescue Society and the Spanish Red Cross deployed vessels and assistance teams to rescue people from the water and heat exhaustion, hypothermia and injuries sustained during the crossings.
Mass crossing of 30–31 July
On 31 July, the Spanish government declared that 49,000 migrants had entered Ceuta within a matter of hours, following several days of sustained arrivals, while Juan Jesús Vivas gave a figure of 60,000. The BBC separately reported officials' estimate of around 49,000 arrivals within 24 hours. Because of the speed and disorder of the crossings, figures were considered provisional and subject to revision. The scale of the crossing changed significantly on the morning of 30 July, when several thousand people gathered on the coast and at crossing points near Ceuta; some swam around the breakwaters, while others crossed on foot through the Tarajal area after passing checkpoints on the Moroccan side. Overnight arrivals continued, with thousands of people also moving towards the Moroccan border town of Fnideq. Press reports described an inconsistent initial response from Moroccan security forces, with some groups passing through monitored areas unhindered before a larger containment operation was mounted. Some migrants reported they had been encouraged to cross into Spain by Moroccan police.
Achraf Maimouni of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights hinted that the border at Tarajal had been opened under "unusual circumstances". Analysts told The New York Times that while the reason for the migration surge was still unclear, the Moroccan government may have felt scorned by Spain's recent overtures to Algeria, amid reports that Moroccan authorities actively encouraged the crossing. Spanish officials denied that Madrid's improving ties with Algeria had damaged its relationship with Morocco. The migrants were predominantly young men. Many arrived by inner tube with their mobile phones zipped in waterproof pouches. Upon reaching the shore, they cheered for Spain and kissed the ground. Given the scale of the entries, the Spanish government ordered Army units already stationed in Ceuta to provide logistical and surveillance support to the Civil Guard while policing duties and direct contact with migrants remained the responsibility of the security forces.