How a social media campaign triggered huge migrant surge on Ceuta

Summary

A few days after Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that migrants who swim into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the coast of northern Africa cannot be summarily returned to Morocco, nearly 60,000 people converged on Ceuta on Friday last week, hoping to make their way to Europe. On July 29, the Spanish court ruled that, as people swimming to Ceuta do not cross the physical border fence, they must be processed according to more stringent legal procedures before they can be deported back to Morocco. Within days, the ruling had been recast online as an open invitation. New accounts and pages claimed Spain had “opened the way” for anyone arriving by sea and that returns were no longer possible. Smuggling networks across Morocco, Africa and Algeria joined the campaign through three main channels. Personal accounts set up in early June posted daily calls to people to cross into Ceuta by sea, directing followers to WhatsApp groups arranging collective travel and reporting on conditions for young people in Ceuta. Platforms amplified news of the gatherings, numbers grew, and the effort peaked in a mass border crossing on July 28 and in the days that followed. Compared with previous attempts to use social media as a tool for mobilising irregular migration and mass border crossings, it noted closer integration across platforms, heavier use of video and faster circulation of practical information. A far-right network on X, meanwhile, used footage of trucks carrying young people towards the Ceuta border, with security and army personnel visible nearby. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, wrote on X: “Spain, which never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel, has declared a state of emergency in Ceuta because of the crisis of its migration policy.