Moroccan authorities say Spain should have anticipated a major migration surge into Ceuta following a Spanish court ruling that limited immediate returns, creating a severe security bottleneck along the North African border.
A senior Moroccan official told reporters in Rabat on Monday, in the first official briefing since the crisis unfolded that Madrid failed to foresee how the judicial decision would compromise border control.
“The local authorities in Ceuta should have anticipated the consequences of a ruling that deactivated illegal migration deterrence,” the official said during the briefing.
He added that while bilateral border control cooperation had previously been “exemplary,” the court decision disrupted years of consistency, leaving Madrid responsible for restoring legal measures to deter illegal entries.
“It is up to Spain to find a solution to restore deterrence,” he said, emphasizing that “Morocco will never be complicit in a purely security-based approach to migration”.
The legal shift triggered an estimated 40,000 migrant entries into the Spanish enclave, according to Moroccan figures, while Spanish border authorities reported returning roughly 69,500 individuals following the surge.
Border violence during the crisis resulted in 72 fatalities on the Spanish side of the border and 11 on the Moroccan side, despite Rabat deploying roughly 24,000 security personnel to reinforce coastline checkpoints.
Ceuta Regional President Juan Jesús Vivas criticized Rabat’s handling of the crisis, stating to newspaper El País that “Morocco has shown us that it isn’t reliable” and demanding stronger defense mechanisms.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez countered that human trafficking networks “misinterpreted” the judicial ruling, rapidly circulating false claims to convince young migrants that reaching Ceuta by sea would guarantee legal status in Europe.
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned against using irregular migration as diplomatic leverage, as EU leaders monitor rising instability along the Mediterranean border.
