Pedro Sánchez has let Ceuta turn into a crisis

As the afternoon draws to a close, the 2,000 or so migrants living in tents or makeshift lean-tos on Trampolín beach make their way to its eastern end. Police form them into groups of 30 or so, squatting on the ground, as they wait for a daily meal provided by the Red Cross. It is six weeks since more than 70,000 migrants surged across the border from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the North African coast, and up to 10,000 are still there. “We are waiting for a solution,” says Abdel Karim, a solderer from Tangier. “We all want to go to the mainland to work.” A dozen other young men around him, all Moroccans bar one Algerian, concur.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addresses lawmakers about the situation in Ceuta, the Spanish exclave in North Africa facing a migrant crisis, during a session of Parliament in Madrid, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026. (AP)That is what other European countries fear, and what Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist government vowed would not happen. At the outset of the crisis Mr Sánchez fleetingly visited Ceuta and denounced an “attack on Spain’s territorial integrity”. His foreign minister promised that “every last person who has entered Spain irregularly” would be returned.

Ceuta's 84,000 residents are still waiting. After 63,000 migrants trekked back across the border within days of entering Spain, press reports wrongly estimated only a few thousand remained. Mr Sánchez went off on three weeks’ holiday. Only in late August did the government do what many demanded from the start. It took direct charge, as Ceuta’s mayor had urged, and promised 6,000 places for migrants in tent camps; more than half have been set up. It has also announced aid for the city of up to €309m ($360m).

Ceutans want all the migrants sent back immediately. But as Mr Sánchez has pointed out, Spain cannot just “throw [them] across the border like a sack of dirt”. Unaccompanied minors, of whom there are around 2,500, cannot easily be deported under Spanish and international law. Spain rejects nearly all asylum claims from Morocco, but it must register and interview migrants before sending them back. Yet the government has shown little urgency. None of the dozen interviewed on Trampolín beach had had their details taken.

Life for Ceutans has become deeply unpleasant. Hundreds of migrants sleep in the street in front of the city’s hospital, where the stench is nauseous. Fear of crime has increased. Soldiers stand guard outside every supermarket. Parents are scared to let children go out, even to school. Some migrants have picked up infectious diseases. “We’ve treated hundreds and hundreds of migrants each day,” says Elisabeth Muñoz, who heads the nurses’ union at the hospital. Meanwhile, she says, Ceutans are cancelling medical appointments for fear of infection.

Businesses have lost out from the cancellation of the town’s annual festival week and the absence of tourists. ”My catastrophe begins again each day,” says Arantxa Campos, who heads the local business association. “People don’t want to leave home, to shop or to come to Ceuta.”

Despite a police report detailing how Moroccan security forces encouraged the migrants, Mr Sánchez has been oddly reluctant to criticise his neighbour. Morocco has long claimed sovereignty over Ceuta and many Spaniards see the surge as a tactic of hybrid war. Locals were heartened when tens of thousands demonstrated across Spain in solidarity with Ceuta on September 2nd. But if Spain wants to keep the city viable, it will have to do more. “Many young people are rethinking whether to stay here or make their life elsewhere. That’s Morocco’s strategy,” says Carlos Rontomé, who directs the local branch of the national distance-learning university.

The sharp political reflexes that Mr Sánchez has shown in eight years as prime minister have deserted him in this crisis. In a survey published this week, only 14% thought he had handled it well. A general election is due next year, and polls give the right-wing opposition a solid majority. Ceuta is likely to fester for months. “It’s a problem related to immigration, an issue that is the great mobiliser for the right,” points out Luis Miller, a political scientist. For Spain and for Mr Sánchez, much is at stake on the streets of Ceuta.