Spain to fence Ceuta border after migrant rush kills 67

Schengen suspension: PM hits out at ‘selfish’ EU netas

Ceuta: Spain announced it would install a 500-metre-long containment barrier along the sea border between its North African territory of Ceuta and neighbouring Mor­occo after 50-60,000 migrants breached the frontier earlier this week. The death toll rose to 67, including people who drowned and others killed in a stampede while trying to cross a breakwater barrier, the Spanish government said on Saturday.

PM Pedro Sanchez slam­m­ed the reaction of some European leaders, saying calls for Spain to be suspended from the EU’s borderless Sch­engen Area were “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance, or political interest”.

A handful of exhausted migrants who swam to Ceuta's urban Tarajal beach on Saturday morning were met by soldiers who escorted them back across the border. Spain’s interior ministry said the majority of those who entered the territory had already returned to Morocco.

“We are relentless against those who break the law,” Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.

Sanchez also sought a videoconference of EU interi­or ministers to “enable us to establish a common response to situations of this kind and reaffirm that the security of our external borders is a shared responsibility of all Member States, and not only of those on the Union's front line”. He criticised some EU nations he said had “chosen to attack Spain and to call for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen Area”. “In the current international context, the EU cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction,” Sanchez wrote in his letter.

European Commission Pre­si­dent Ursula von der Leyen welcomed calls from leaders for a meeting to “take stock of what has happened” in Ceuta, but maintained that the EU had offered help to Spain “from the first moment”.

On X, Von der Leyen said: “The good news is that the vast majority of those who arrived illegally have returned to Morocco, due to the effective work of Spanish and Moroccan law enforcement. Not a single person reached mainland Spain or the rest of the EU. This shows why the control of our European borders matters. We have a strong system in place. But it needs to be further strengthened.”

France stepped up border controls with Spain following the influx of migrants into Ceuta, President Emmanuel Macron said.

“Ceuta does not enjoy free movement to the rest of the Schengen Area. However, yesterday I asked the interior minister to strengthen controls at our border with Spain if necessary: four mobile police units, aircraft and drones have been deployed,” Macron said on X. Portuguese PM Luis Montenegro said: “There is no reason to take any measure to suspend the rules of the Schengen Area, but there are reasons to reinforce the presence of security forces at border controls clo­sest to this event, on the maritime and land borders of sou­thern Portugal.”