Reuters —
A day before more than 70,000 migrants entered Spain’s North African enclave, Spanish intelligence warned Moroccan intelligence and Madrid of plans to storm Ceuta, according to a government document released Wednesday.
In a July 29 letter to Morocco’s intelligence agencies DGST and DGED, Spain’s intelligence agency, the Center National Informatics (CNI), warned of plans on social media platforms by migrants to take advantage of Morocco’s national Throne Day celebrations by climbing or swimming around the border fence to enter Ceuta.
The CNI also alerted Spanish government representatives in Ceuta about the plan on the same day, according to declassified WhatsApp messages.
Regarding the size of the social media group, CNI wrote, “There are two different groups with a total of 180,000 followers. Just to give you an idea of the size.”
The Moroccan government did not respond to requests for comment.
Six weeks after a surge that NGOs estimate killed 140 people, more than 10,000 migrants, including unaccompanied minors, remain in Ceuta, living in makeshift camps and on the streets and beaches in enclaves, where near-daily protests by residents angry at the Spanish government’s handling of the crisis have intensified, according to local authorities.
The release of the documents could increase scrutiny of operational decisions made in the hours before the crossing and whether sufficient measures were taken to prevent it.
But Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Álvarez said the documents showed there was no warning about the scale of the July 30 migrant surge.
“As Spain’s foreign minister, I am speaking within my authority and based on what I experienced that day. I was not aware of any information indicating the scale of the avalanche,” Alvarez told reporters on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said last week that Spain had found no evidence to conclude that the deadly border rush from Morocco into the enclave of Ceuta in July was orchestrated by Moroccan authorities, contradicting Spanish police claims in a report.
However, on July 30, reports reported that Spain’s Ministry of Interior reported the border police’s reluctance, announcing that on the day of the border crossing, which was a Moroccan public holiday, 1,000 additional police and soldiers were expected to strengthen the border.
The Spanish government on Wednesday published 40 intelligence reports, alerts and communications related to the Ceuta migration crisis from July 1 to 31, following a promise made by President Sánchez to do so.
They show that conditions had worsened in the week leading up to the mass crossing.
“Since July 25, a migrant crisis has developed in Ceuta, with the arrival of around 1,700 migrants by boat from Morocco to the autonomous city…The available information indicates that further incursions are to be expected in the very short term,” Spain’s Ministry of Defense said in an internal presentation published on July 30, describing the situation on the Moroccan coast near Ceuta as a “migrant chaos”.
The European Commission announced Wednesday that it had given Spain 114.7 million euros ($133.6 million) in aid to manage the situation in the North African enclave.
