Spain’s spy agency warned of mass crossings into Ceuta before border crisis

Spain’s intelligence services had warned of possible mass crossings by migrants and asylum seekers into Ceuta just before tens of thousands of people arrived in the Spanish enclave in late July, according to declassified documents.

The trove of 40 documents was released on Wednesday amid near-daily protests in Ceuta over the Spanish government’s handling of the crisis, as well as questions over neighbouring Morocco’s role in the events.

The documents show that on July 29 – a day before more than 72,000 people began pouring into Ceuta from Morocco – Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) sent an alert via WhatsApp to the Spanish government’s delegation in the city about calls on social media “for an assault on the fence and by sea tomorrow at 8 pm”.

“There are two different groups with a total of 180,000 followers,” the declassified message said, referencing social media groups, “just to give you an idea of its scale”.

On the same day, CNI also warned Moroccan intelligence agencies DGST and DGED of plans for migrants to enter Ceuta by climbing the border fence or swimming around it. The agency mentioned that the plans could take advantage of Morocco’s national Throne Day, celebrated on July 30.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday rejected the idea that the declassified documents revealed there was prior warning of a border crisis on the scale of what took place between July 30 and 31.

“The existence of this campaign was known to other institutions and was being monitored, but in no way did it constitute or could it be interpreted as an indicator of the scale, nature, or probability of what happened afterward”, Sanchez wrote on X.

Sanchez had previously said there was no evidence of Morocco’s involvement in the crisis, despite a leaked police report in July that alleged “total permissiveness” from Moroccan police during the border rush.