Spanish Intelligence and security reports declassified on Wednesday had warned of possible “mass entries” by migrants into Ceuta just before thousands crossed into Spain’s North African enclave from Morocco.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had told parliament when he announced he would declassify these 40 documents that there was “no information that conveyed the magnitude” of “the crisis we were going to suffer” on July 30 and 31.
“Internal communications have been detected in migrant groups in which they are trying to organise mass entries on the night of 29/07/2026,” reads a document from CENIF, a border division of the National Police, issued on the eve of the arrival of more than 70,000 migrants in the small Spanish territory.
CENIF said almost 1,000 people swam in from Morocco between July 1 and 28 — “a drastic upward trend compared to last year,” and “a consolidated and priority threat”.
An urgent memo from the National Intelligence Centre on the afternoon of July 29 warns of “several calls to carry out entries into Ceuta” in Facebook groups, one of them with over 160,000 members.
In a message on X Wednesday, Sanchez said that “with the information available at the time, no one could have foreseen the migration crisis that unfolded on the 30th and 31st. No competent body did so. Neither in Spain nor in the EU.”
He also said he had not received any document with “solid evidence that Morocco planned or carried out the incident”.