Overview
- A mass entry of more than 70,000 people on July 30–31 overwhelmed Ceuta’s services and left several thousand people, including over 2,000 minors, still living in precarious conditions across beaches and improvised camps.
- Police and Guardia Civil data show managed voluntary returns have risen to roughly 220 people per day recently, but authorities estimate between about 5,000 and 9,000 remain in the city while hundreds continue to opt to go back to Morocco.
- Spain’s immigration law (LOEX) and the 2024 implementing regulation require individual identification, age determination and asylum screening, procedures that slow expulsions and bar immediate returns for minors, trafficking victims and other vulnerable people.
- Prosecutors and officials warn that repatriation of Moroccan minors is frequently blocked by lack of response from Rabat, making full returns dependent on Moroccan cooperation despite Madrid’s public pledge to repatriate all irregular entrants.
- Local volunteers and NGOs have improvised shelters and a plastic-roof camp to protect vulnerable girls and children while the PP and regional leaders press for emergency legal changes, a central 'mando único' and faster operational tools that would raise legal and human-rights questions.