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Residents in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta tore down and burned makeshift migrant shelters amid escalating tensions over a massive influx from neighboring Morocco, as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez accused Russian and Israeli-linked networks of helping spread disinformation that fueled the crisis.
Demonstrators carrying Spanish flags moved toward beachside migrant camps last week, destroying shelters and setting fires as police attempted to keep protesters and migrants apart, according to Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE and news agency EFE. Protesters chanted “Invasores, expulsión” — “Invaders, expulsion” — as they advanced toward the beaches where migrants have been staying, EFE reported Aug. 27.
Hundreds of residents returned to the streets the following day, marching toward the Trampolín and Benítez beach areas where migrants were camped and repeating the same chant, according to EFE.
The unrest follows an unprecedented surge on July 30 and 31, when more than 72,000 migrants irregularly crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, one of the European Union’s two land borders with Africa. At least 100 people died attempting the crossing, according to Ceuta authorities cited by Reuters on Aug. 31. Roughly 5,000 migrants remained in the enclave as of Monday.
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Sánchez on Monday directly linked the mass crossing to what he described as a foreign-backed disinformation campaign.
Spanish authorities have said misleading videos and posts circulating on Instagram, TikTok and other social-media platforms falsely suggested that migrants who reached Ceuta by sea would be permitted to remain in Spain.
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Sánchez told radio station SER that research by the European Union’s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service, indicated Russian and Israeli networks had participated in spreading the disinformation alongside far-right networks, Reuters reported Aug. 31.
He argued that Russia and Israel had seized on the crisis to attack Madrid because of disagreements with his government over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
However, Sánchez provided no further details about the evidence supporting the accusation, according to the reports.
Both governments rejected his claims.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accused Sánchez of “lying shamelessly” and said in a post on X that the Spanish leader was attempting to divert attention from domestic policy failures.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov separately rejected Spain’s accusation that Russia was connected to the Ceuta migration crisis.
Sánchez also rejected allegations that Morocco’s government deliberately facilitated the border surge, telling SER, “When people talk and speculate about the participation of Moroccan authorities, I deny this outright,” according to Reuters. Spanish opposition parties and some human-rights organizations have accused Rabat of allowing the crossings, an allegation Morocco denies.
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The disinformation surrounding the Ceuta crossing had been building well before Sánchez publicly accused Russian and Israeli-linked networks. Fox News Digital reported Aug. 4 that an open-source investigation by Golden Owl Intelligence traced weeks of activity across TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp that circulated misleading interpretations of Spanish immigration law, along with information about routes, meeting points and recommended crossing times.
The campaign intensified after Spain’s Supreme Court issued a July 8 ruling restricting the immediate return of migrants intercepted at sea near Ceuta and Melilla. Simplified accounts of the ruling, combined with confusion over Spain’s separate plan to regularize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants, were circulated online as evidence that migrants reaching Spanish territory would be allowed to stay.
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Zineb Riboua, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, said at the time that Islamist movements were also seeking to exploit the crisis politically. Riboua argued that Islamist voices in Morocco and Spain were amplifying the unrest and portraying Europe as an attractive destination while using Morocco’s ties with Israel and the U.S. to attack the Moroccan government. In a July 31 analysis, Riboua wrote that Islamist activists had spent years encouraging young Moroccans to believe their country offered them little future and depicting Europe as a place where prosperity and opportunity were easily available.
The crisis has also spread beyond Spain. Italy on Monday extended for another 15 days its suspension of Schengen free-movement arrangements with Spain, a step first imposed July 31 in response to the mass influx into Ceuta.
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Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, warned Fox News Digital at the outset of the crisis that Ceuta could become “a key turning point in the unraveling of the European Union.” “Once you unravel Schengen — which I think is inevitable — this breaks down the entire European project,” Gardiner said.
Reuters contributed to this story.
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