On 29 July, a day before tens of thousands of people reached Ceuta, Spain’s National Intelligence Service (CNI) sent Moroccan intelligence a note. It said WhatsApp and Facebook groups were promoting an attempt to get into the Spanish exclave the next day, “both swimming and via the [border] fence.” The record shows the CNI put the audience at around 180,000 people.
One message quoted in the filing was blunt: “Whoever wants to cross has the last chance on Throne Day [30 July] at 8 the authorities will be distracted with the celebrations and parades.”
Rabat was not the only recipient. The CNI also sent a text message about the social media activity to the central government’s representation in Ceuta and to the civil guard. The documents were declassified by the Spanish government this week, and the BBC reported on them.
What followed
At least 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into Ceuta on 30 and 31 July, according to figures from the city’s mayor. Most swam around a border fence. At least 100 people died. Most of those who crossed went back, but as many as 5,000 are still in makeshift camps or sleeping on the streets and beaches, and unrest has followed in the autonomous city on North Africa’s coast. Some locals have destroyed shelters and blocked aid meant for the migrants, citing safety concerns.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has insisted that the events of 30 July could not have been predicted. He told parliament earlier there was “no information that conveyed the magnitude” of the “crisis we were going to suffer” on the last two days of July. Shortly before the release on Wednesday, he told Spanish television that “the mass arrival of migrants was not expected.”
The messages are part of a tranche of more than 40 security documents on the crossing. The government released them after mounting pressure over its handling of the crisis and widespread allegations in Spain that Morocco helped facilitate the crossings. Earlier this month a leaked Spanish police report appeared to implicate Moroccan police. Sánchez maintains there is no evidence of Moroccan complicity.
Opposition and government respond
Opposition parties say the files show the government misled Spaniards. “They had the information, they are directly responsible for the invasion of Ceuta and for those who died,” said Ester Muñoz of the conservative People’s Party. Jorge Buxadé of the far-right Vox wrote on social media that the documents showed Sánchez “and his band of criminals should be brought before the Supreme Court for treason and security crimes.”
The government says it acted on the information it had. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said he was “not aware of any report that might have foreseen the magnitude of what happened on July 30.” A government source said the published papers “showed that the information available before the mass crossing did not make it possible to anticipate the scale that the crisis would reach or prepare with enough time the necessary response.”
Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, the central government’s delegate in Ceuta, addressed the texts the CNI sent to his office. “The Whatsapps from [July] 29 do not constitute an alert or a report,” he said. “It is nothing more than an exchange of information.”
