Fifty Thousand People Crossed Into Ceuta, and Italy Suspended Schengen

Around 50,000 people, most of them Moroccan and some from sub-Saharan Africa, crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta by land and sea beginning on Thursday 30 July. Melilla, Spain's second North African territory, was also affected, with movement from the neighbouring Moroccan town of Bni Nsar.

Moroccan police used batons, tear gas and water cannon; migrants threw rocks and set police vehicles alight. Ceuta's local government head Juan Jesus Vivas put the death toll at 34, after an earlier report of 19 bodies recovered from the water. Dozens were arrested. Spain says around 48,000 people have since returned voluntarily, and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's government is accelerating repatriations with Moroccan cooperation.

The European response was faster than the returns. Italy suspended the Schengen agreement with Spain, and France increased its border police presence fivefold by Saturday. Both are decisions about internal European borders taken in response to an external one.

Ceuta and Melilla are the European Union's only land borders with Africa, which makes them the place where a bilateral understanding between Madrid and Rabat becomes a continental question in the space of about forty eight hours.