MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Italy and France tighten borders with Spain after 50,000 enter Ceuta

Spain's Interior Ministry put at around 50,000 the number who entered since Thursday and at 48,300 those who had already returned voluntarily to Morocco, according to its latest Friday update

Italy ordered the reintroduction of border checks at its ports and airports with Spain on Friday, and France announced it would increase fivefold the officers deployed at its land border from Saturday, after tens of thousands of people entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta irregularly from Morocco.

Spain's Interior Ministry put at around 50,000 the number who entered since Thursday and at 48,300 those who had already returned voluntarily to Morocco, according to its latest Friday update, with departures running at a rate the government placed at 150 people per minute. The Government Delegation in Ceuta raised the death toll to 57, a provisional count that rose through the day. Most died attempting to reach the coast by swimming. Ceuta has around 83,000 inhabitants and its services were overwhelmed; Spain deployed the Army.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni presented the decision as a temporary suspension of Schengen free movement on maritime and air connections with Spain, adopted, she said, to protect national security. Rome later clarified that the checks would be random and apply only to non-EU citizens.

European rules do not permit what some governments have proposed. The Schengen Borders Code provides no mechanism for excluding a state from the free movement area, only the temporary reintroduction of checks by a country at its own borders, as a last resort and in the face of a serious threat to public policy or internal security. Former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday that no member state can unilaterally suspend another's participation. Sweden, Finland and Denmark had raised excluding Spain.

French Interior Minister Laurent Núñez said 334 police officers and gendarmes would join regular deployments on Saturday, after being tripled on Friday, supported by three aircraft, drones and reinforced patrols on trains. Emmanuel Macron expressed solidarity with Spain and offered Frontex resources.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez traveled to Ceuta and described what happened as a violation of Spain's territorial integrity, which he attributed to human trafficking networks rather than to Morocco, whose cooperation on repatriation he explicitly thanked. Spanish police unions said Moroccan authorities had eased exit controls, a claim that has not been officially confirmed.

EU ambassadors will meet on Monday and member state experts on Saturday under the bloc's crisis response mechanism, convened by the Irish presidency. The closest precedent is May 2021, when between 8,000 and 10,000 people entered over two days.