Intelligence reports show Spain received warnings of mass migrant crossings into Ceuta

Declassified intelligence documents released on Wednesday show that Spanish security agencies had warned of potential mass migrant entries into Ceuta—the Spanish enclave in North Africa—just hours before tens of thousands crossed the border from Morocco in late July.

The publication of the 40 documents has intensified political pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose government had previously maintained that the scale of the influx was unpredictable.

What warnings did Spanish intelligence issue prior to the Ceuta crisis?

According to internal reports issued by CENIF, a border security unit of the National Police, authorities detected internal communications within migrant groups attempting to organize coordinated mass entries for the night of July 29.

An urgent alert dispatched by the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) on the afternoon of July 29 specifically cited social media calls for mass border breaches across online groups, including one Facebook forum with over 160,000 members. Intelligence officers noted that nearly 1,000 migrants had swum into Ceuta from Morocco during the first 28 days of July, identifying the trend as a consolidated security threat.

Despite the intelligence alerts, Prime Minister Sánchez defended the government's handling of the situation in a message posted to X on Wednesday, stating that "no competent body" in Spain or the European Union could have anticipated the ultimate magnitude of the crisis, which saw over 70,000 people enter the territory within 48 hours.

How have the Spanish opposition and Moroccan government reacted?

According to The Independent and Al Jazeera, growing scrutiny regarding the role of Moroccan security forces during the border crossing. While a leaked police report pointed to the "permissiveness" of Moroccan border guards, a military intelligence report dated July 30 concluded it was "highly likely" that Moroccan authorities did not directly orchestrate the wave, but had acted in a negligent and passive manner.

Spain's main opposition party, the right-wing Popular Party (PP), accused the Sánchez administration of concealing intelligence warnings and misleading parliament. PP spokesperson Ester Muñoz asserted that the government possessed actionable intelligence prior to the border breach and demanded full political accountability for what she termed a direct failure of border security.