Key facts
- Thousands of migrants have crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta since Thursday.
- Spanish government estimates place the number of arrivals at approximately 60,000.
- At least 18 deaths have been reported, many in a stampede.
- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez condemned the event as an 'attack on territorial integrity'.
- The current influx is potentially the largest single surge of irregular arrivals ever recorded on EU territory.
Thousands of migrants have crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta since Thursday, in what could be the largest single irregular arrival event ever recorded on EU territory. Spanish government estimates place the number of arrivals at around 60,000. Most migrants swam from the Moroccan border town of Fnideq, reaching several beaches. At least 18 people have died in the attempt, many in a stampede while trying to cross breakwater fences.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described the event as an 'attack on the country's territorial integrity' and blamed migrant trafficking, citing a Spanish Supreme Court ruling that he believes gangs misinterpreted as a ban on returning migrants without prior trial.
This current crisis in Ceuta is being compared to a similar event in May 2021, when approximately 10,000 migrants entered the enclave within 48 hours. That influx was widely interpreted as political retaliation by Morocco over Spain's decision to allow Brahim Ghali, the leader of Western Sahara's pro-independence front Polisario, into Spain for medical treatment.
Historically, Europe has experienced other significant spikes in arrivals, often linked to conflicts and diplomatic disputes. The 2015-2016 crisis, triggered by the war in Syria, saw nearly 400,000 irregular crossings reported in Hungary in 2015, and the Greek island of Lesbos received almost half a million arrivals in the same year. In 2020, Turkey announced it would no longer prevent migrants from reaching Europe, leading to a tense standoff with Greece after opening its border to an estimated 80,000 migrants.
More recently, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, new flows of illegal migrants entered the EU via Belarus, with Frontex detecting nearly 11,000 irregular crossings in 2025. However, these figures are lower than those on the busier eastern Mediterranean (51,000 detections in 2025) and central Mediterranean (66,000 detections in 2025) routes, with Italy often on the frontline. A notable surge occurred in Lampedusa in September 2023, with 7,000 migrants arriving in two days. Italy also recalls the 1991 arrival of approximately 20,000 Albanian refugees by ship.