Spain's Spy Agency Warned of Mass Ceuta Crossings Prior to July Influx, Documents Show

Declassified documents released on Wednesday revealed that Spain's National Intelligence Center (CNI) had warned of potential mass crossings into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta just before tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers arrived in late July. The intelligence alerts, issued a day before the large-scale influx began, detailed social media calls for an "assault" on the border fence and by sea, according to the documents.

On July 29, the CNI sent a WhatsApp alert to the Spanish government's delegation in Ceuta, flagging calls on social media for an organized crossing "tomorrow at 8 pm." The message specified that two different groups promoting the action had a combined total of 180,000 followers. The following day, July 30, more than 72,000 people began pouring into Ceuta from Morocco. The documents were declassified amid ongoing protests in Ceuta regarding the government's handling of the crisis and scrutiny over Morocco's role in the events.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez acknowledged awareness of the social media campaign but rejected the notion that the CNI warnings indicated the eventual scale of the crisis. On Wednesday, Sanchez stated on X that while the campaign was known and monitored, it "in no way did it constitute or could it be interpreted as an indicator of the scale, nature, or probability of what happened afterward." This statement follows a leaked police report from July that had alleged "total permissiveness" from Moroccan police during the border rush, contradicting Sanchez's earlier claim of no evidence of Moroccan involvement.

The CNI had also alerted Moroccan intelligence agencies, the DGST and DGED, on July 29 about the planned entries, noting that the plans might exploit Morocco's national Throne Day, celebrated on July 30. A declassified CNI document issued at midday on July 30 assessed that it was "highly likely that the Moroccan authorities are not actively encouraging the migratory wave, but have so far acted in a negligent and passive manner." It added that "at the operational level, no proactive response from Moroccan authorities was observed regarding the loss of control over the situation, beyond the deployment of a few riot control units." No immediate comment was available from Morocco regarding the declassified documents.

The intelligence reports further noted that on the night of July 29, many individuals were already "waiting to jump into the water to reach Ceuta." Despite an "increased presence of Moroccan police and gendarmes," it proved "insufficient to control the crowd," with "several hundred migrants swam across" that night. More than a month after the mass crossing, approximately 5,000 migrants and asylum seekers, including 1,200 minors, remain in Ceuta, according to the Spanish government.

Local officials, however, cite a higher figure of up to 10,000 people in the city, which has a population of about 84,000. Madrid has pledged $357 million in aid to address the situation, as some individuals remain unhoused. Spain's opposition parties have accused the government of failing to act despite having received prior warnings, holding them "directly responsible" for the crisis.

Source: Synthesized from reporting by yahoo.com.