Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni called for Spain's suspension from European Union's visa-free Schengen travel zone after thousands of migrants crossed into the Spanish city of Ceuta from Morocco.
Spain on Thursday said it was deploying the military to the North African enclave to restore order at its “totally collapsed” border after at least nine people died during the mass migrant crossing this week.
The armed forces said it would send 60 personnel to reinforce the police to deal with people swimming over to the enclave.
Ms Meloni said the images emerging from Ceuta of migrants crossing were "shocking".
"We are in the process of bringing together the competent bodies and, once these meetings are over, we are ready to act, including through exceptional measures, such as suspending the Schengen agreement with Spain," she said on X.
“Italy will not stand idly by,” Ms Meloni said.
Spain said it would send the Armed Forces to help the Civil Guard "to maintain security in the city of Ceuta”, adding that prime minister Pedro Sánchez would join interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on a visit to the area on Friday.
“The situation is absolute chaos,” Rachid Sbihi, head of the association representing Spain’s Civil Guard officers in Ceuta, who police the border, said. “It’s not possible to give precise numbers, but there are thousands of migrants crossing,” he said, adding that the border had “totally collapsed”.
Video footage showed hundreds of migrants swimming over from the Moroccan side using inflatable inner tubes and other flotation devices, and others breaking through a gate in the fence and running into the city, many shouting, “Viva España!”
State television TVE reported that 2,000 to 3,000 people had crossed.
Juan Jesus Vivas, the head of Ceuta's regional government, called for the national government to declare an emergency on grounds of national security. He asked for more police and for the army to be deployed on the border "to guarantee the inviolability of the frontier and citizen safety."
He had warned on Wednesday that migrant reception centres were overwhelmed with hundreds of people sleeping on the streets after more than 1,500 migrants entered the territory in the past week.
The scene was reminiscent of the crossing that occurred in May 2021, when some 10,000 people from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, many of them minors, entered the enclave of 85,000 people in a matter of days.
“We are overwhelmed, and I’m afraid this won’t be over in two days,” the Spanish police said, according to El Pais newspaper. “We are one step away from operational collapse,” an unnamed police officer was quoted as saying. “It’s worse than the May 2021 migration crisis.”
Ceuta is located on the northern African coast, bordering Morocco. Spain is a main point of arrival into Europe for migrants seeking better economic opportunities or an escape from violence in their home countries.
The escalation at the border between Spain and Morocco comes after a surge in migrants attempting to reach the small exclave, mainly by swimming.
One person said he had been caught in a stampede during an attempted crossing. "I feared for my life," said the migrant, who declined to give his name, as he described chaotic scenes of people pushing and stepping on one another along a narrow coastal route.
Traffic clogged roads into Fnideq as would-be migrants, including minors, continued to arrive. Some trudged along the highway into the city late into the night, while others took mountain paths to avoid checkpoints.
Moroccan authorities deployed water cannon trucks and reinforced security at the crossing-gates, repeatedly pushing back migrants attempting to approach.
"I was late," said Brahim, 32, who gave only one name.
He said he had arrived from Tangier hoping to cross through the gate but found it effectively shut.
Achraf Maimouni, a member of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights in northern Morocco, described the situation as "exceptional."
“The Tarajal border was opened under unusual circumstances this morning and people crossed,” he said.
Spain’s interior ministry said it would guarantee the safety of its citizens and the nation’s border, but that the government could not declare a national emergency over migration concerns.
Footage showed crowds of people, mainly Moroccans, walking around the breakwaters at Tarajal beach onto local roads.
A Guardia Civil spokesperson said the migrants were “massively entering from the sea” through the Tarajal breakwater, but could not provide any estimates for the numbers. State news agency EFE said some had scaled the border fences without swimming.
Migrant rights activist Zakaria Zarroqui said the situation “remains out of control as we speak”, adding that people were still flocking to the Moroccan city of Fnideq in an attempt to cross into Ceuta.
Many local shops were shuttered. Enrique Serrano, who runs a women’s clothing store in central Ceuta, told Reuters business owners were organising themselves to protect their property and families in case of possible disturbances as they believed police resources would be insufficient.
“I’m not opening this afternoon because the situation is extremely tense ... The first thing I have to do is protect my business and my family,” he said, adding that when the fence was breached after midnight, hundreds of migrants rushed through in a matter of minutes.
The interior ministry said that legislation covering a declaration of national emergencies does not consider migration flows as a risk to national security.
Government administrations are “coordinating to respond with speed and efficacy to the situation in Ceuta”, it said.
The ministry said the Moroccan government was “closely cooperating” with Spain to handle the situation, saying that Moroccan police are stopping “numerous people” trying to cross the border.
Fatima Mahli, 23, sat with her two daughters on a patch of grass beside the road to the crossing. The resident of Morocco's northern city of Tetouan said her husband had left before dawn to try to swim to Ceuta.
"I thought I could cross by foot through the border. But we are stuck here, unable to go back home," she said. "I was hoping to cross as a family but my husband woke up early and went first, swimming."
Earlier this month, Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that migrants intercepted at sea while attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily returned under the enclaves’ special border-rejection regime. “It has been a slow trickle since the Supreme Court’s ruling, but today has been an explosion,” the Guardia Civil spokesperson told Reuters.
Spain’s Socialist government stands out in Europe for its pro-migrant stance, and has recently launched a programme to provide legal status for some 500,000 undocumented migrants, creating an influx of applications double that number.
Right-wing parties criticised the drive, arguing it would attract more migrants to Spain, and were quick to blame Mr Sanchez for allowing the situation in Ceuta to reach crisis proportions.
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