Ceuta's leader Juan Jesus Vivas addressed the European Parliament on Thursday, telling EU lawmakers that around 100 people had died during last week's border surge. He also said the city was still reeling from the event and now dealing with the aftermath of unaccompanied migrant minors.
Vivas' visit to Brussels comes a week after some 72,000 migrants rushed through the border between Morocco and Spain's North African territory of Ceuta. The incident sparked a spat between several EU countries and Spain, with Italy suspending the Schengen free-travel pact with Spain.
On Wednesday, Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras said some 141 people had died on July 30, with 63 bodies found in Morocco and 78 in Ceuta.
The Spanish government claimed that nearly all migrants had returned to Morocco, but Vivas noted that between 3,000 and 5,000 migrants were still in Ceuta. He also said Ceuta lacked the security resources necessary to deal with the situation.
"Security forces have not been deployed with the intensity required by the situation we are still facing," he told a European Parliament committee. "Immigration services have not been sufficiently reinforced to handle the border rejections," he added.
Of great concern for Ceuta are the large number of migrant children left there after last week's border rush. Vivas described the situation as "unsustainable," pleading for government help. It is estimated that hundreds of unaccompanied minors are currently in Ceuta, enduring difficult conditions with limited access to food, water, shelter, and sanitation.
In 2025, a Spanish immigration law reform was passed after a surge of migration overwhelmed reception centers in the Canary Islands, mandating the redistribution of unaccompanied minors from overstretched territories within 15 days of their case file being completed.
The redistribution of the children to the rest of Spain is expected to meet resistance from regions governed by the center-right Popular Party (PP) and the anti-immigration, far-right Vox party. However, Spain's socialist government has warned against it, with deputy prime minister Carlos Cuerpo saying that PP and its regional governments "must comply with the law just like everyone else."
Source: www.dw.com