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The Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta was recently overwhelmed by an unprecedented surge of migrant crossings, an event that has laid bare the deep economic desperation driving many Moroccans to risk everything for a chance at a new life in the European Union. What unfolded over 24 hours between Thursday and Friday was one of the largest mass border movements the territory has ever seen, with more than 60,000 people crossing into the small territory that is home to just around 85,000 permanent residents.

For many migrants, the journey was rooted in years of unmet hope and limited economic opportunity at home. Twenty-one-year-old aspiring teacher Abdulah Buji was among the first to rush toward the border after word spread that fence lines had been breached. Riding his motorbike from his home in northern Morocco, Buji joined thousands of other people who swam across the water into Ceuta, clinging to the belief that reaching Spanish soil would open the door to a better future than what Morocco could offer. “I am a talented boy. I just want a chance,” Buji told reporters, explaining that after 14 years of education, the only work available in his home country would force him to work 12-hour days for extremely low pay. But his optimism quickly faded once he arrived. Spanish authorities had already moved to seal off any onward travel to mainland Spain, and ordered all new arrivals to return to Morocco or face forced expulsion and detention. Having already lost all his belongings and savings during the crossing, Buji ultimately chose to head back to Morocco, disappointed that the opportunity he sought was nowhere to be found. He is far from alone: more than 50 migrants died while attempting the swim around Ceuta’s border fence during this mass crossing event.

By the end of the first full day after the surge began, roughly 45,000 of the 60,000 arrivals had returned to Moroccan territory. The remaining thousands spent the night sleeping on Ceuta’s streets, surrounded by armed Spanish police and military personnel deployed to restore order, as shocked local residents adjusted to the sudden influx that equaled 70% of the enclave’s entire population. Local officials urgently called for additional security personnel to manage the crisis, and residents expressed growing unease as thousands of mostly young migrant men wandered the streets with no clear destination. This event marks a far larger humanitarian emergency than a similar 2021 incident, when Moroccan authorities temporarily lifted border controls and allowed several thousand migrants to enter Ceuta over two days.

As word of the initial crossings spread across social media, thousands more people across Morocco headed toward the Ceuta border, crowding train stations in major cities including the capital Rabat and Casablanca, Morocco’s largest urban center. Local media footage showed Moroccan police blocking many would-be migrants from boarding trains and buses bound for the northern border region. Researchers note that the mass movement was heavily amplified by social media, where posts encouraging crossings and sharing practical tips for entering Ceuta circulated widely in the days before the surge. “It isn’t clear what triggered the influx, but social media was awash with posts encouraging Moroccans to try to enter Ceuta days before it began,” explained Myriam Cherti, a senior migration researcher at the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society. Cherti added that many of the migrants she has interviewed have attempted to cross the border dozens of times, driven not by recklessness but by deep desperation. “They’re doing it out of despair, they’re doing it because they’ve tried other ways to build a life and failed, they’re doing it because they feel the obligation that they want to help their families and support them,” she said. “And that’s possible if they make it to Spain and not necessarily possible if they stay” in Morocco.

Thirty-three-year-old Ahmed Karim, who successfully crossed into Ceuta, echoed that sentiment, noting that widespread unemployment and strict border restrictions leave most Moroccans with no legal path to travel to Europe or North America. “They don’t have the opportunity,” he said.

Not all of those who crossed into Ceuta came to stay; many arrived searching for missing loved ones who had attempted the crossing and had not been heard from. Ikrra Khai, a 33-year-old who regularly holds a temporary work permit to harvest crops on Spanish farms, was in Ceuta searching for the brother of a close friend. “I don’t know if he is dead or alive,” she said. “I have his residency card. But I don’t know where he is. I’m searching.”

The reporting for this story was led by Joseph Wilson from Barcelona, Spain, with additional contributions from Danica Kirka in London and Akram Oubachir in Fnideq, Morocco.

Against a backdrop of rising execution rates for foreign nationals in Saudi Arabia, seven Ethiopian death row inmates have risked retaliation to share their harrowing stories directly with the BBC’s Tigrinya language service, smuggled out through a prison phone line to expose the harsh realities of their incarceration and flawed judicial process.

All of the men interviewed are originally from Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where a devastating two-year civil war that ended in 2022 left communities destroyed and economies shattered. Like thousands of other Tigrayans, they fled conflict and poverty, undertaking dangerous cross-border journeys through Djibouti and Yemen in search of work and safety in Saudi Arabia — only to face death sentences for drug-related charges they say they did not fully understand, and were never given a fair chance to challenge.

Habtom, a pseudonym used to protect his identity from retaliation, has spent more than three years on death row in a southern Saudi prison in Khamis Mushait. In a shaky, desperate call made over the hum of shouting cellmates, he described the constant uncertainty that haunts every inmate waiting for execution. “One prisoner cannot comfort another. We have no choice but to cry. We are waiting for our turn, even though we do not know when it will happen,” he said.

He says he was lured into carrying a package by his employers, who promised extra money on top of his low-paid goatherding job. He had no idea what the package contained; he only learned later it was khat, a mild stimulant widely consumed in the Horn of Africa, though Saudi authorities officially list the charges as hashish smuggling. Like most of the inmates interviewed, Habtom says he was denied access to a lawyer, forced to sign an Arabic-language document he could not read, and never got the chance to defend himself in court.

Rights groups say Habtom’s experience is far from unique. Data collected by Amnesty International shows a sharp, alarming rise in executions of Ethiopian nationals in Saudi Arabia: just two were executed in 2023, 35 were put to death in 2025, and 17 have already been executed in the first seven months of 2026 — five of those on a single Monday in 2026. That makes Ethiopians the nationality with the highest number of executions among non-Saudi citizens held in the kingdom.

Dana Ahmed, a researcher with Amnesty International, told the BBC two key factors are likely driving the surge. First, the end of the Tigray war pushed thousands of displaced, desperate migrants to seek refuge and work in Saudi Arabia, increasing the pool of detainees. Second, Saudi Arabia has expanded the use of the death penalty for drug-related offences in recent years. Ahmed added that systemic due process failures are baked into these cases: defendants almost never get access to legal counsel or court documents, translation services (when provided) are inadequate, and the theoretical right to appeal is effectively unobtainable without legal support, meaning death sentences are almost always automatically upheld. “There is a near-total lack of transparency throughout the entire judicial process, from sentencing to Supreme Court review and ratification by the King,” Ahmed said. “People on death row and their families are left in the dark about their fate.”

Nadia Hardman, senior adviser on refugee and migrant rights at Human Rights Watch (HRW), confirmed these accounts, telling the BBC the organization has documented mass trials with no adherence to basic due process, where detainees are sentenced en masse and then left waiting for execution with no information on when their sentence will be carried out.

Saudi authorities have not responded to specific BBC requests for comment on the allegations of unfair judicial processes. The kingdom’s official policy, outlined in public statements released after each execution, maintains all cases follow a clear, formal process: investigation, trial, appeal, Supreme Court review, and final royal decree. Statements add that the death penalty for drug offences reflects the government’s commitment to protecting Saudi citizens from the harm of drug trafficking.

Beyond the injustice of their convictions, inmates described brutal, dehumanizing conditions inside the overcrowded prison. Another inmate, identified only by the pseudonym Desta, said 200 men are crammed into a single cell built to hold just 90. During the day, inmates squeeze together on the floor in sweltering heat; at night, when temperatures drop, they use discarded rubbish bags as blankets because they are not provided with sheets. Guards only open the cell door once a day to drop off food, and inmates who ask questions face severe beatings, he said.

Desta, a former brick-maker who fled Tigray when the civil war reached his hometown, said he was also tricked into carrying a khat package by a smuggler who promised him safe passage across the border from Yemen. When police intercepted the group, the Yemeni smuggler escaped, leaving Desta and the other Ethiopians to face charges. He described the same broken judicial process: forced to sign Arabic paperwork he could not understand, no lawyer, no chance to argue his innocence, and a death sentence handed down after just two court appearances.

For these men, diplomatic intervention so far has produced little tangible change. After 17 Ethiopians were executed in April 2026, there was widespread international outcry: Ethiopia’s influential Orthodox Church Patriarch Abune Mathias called the inmates “voiceless children” living “under the shadow of death” and urged the Ethiopian government to intervene. HRW called on Saudi Arabia to suspend all executions of Ethiopian migrants immediately, and asked Ethiopia to provide urgent consular support.

The issue was raised at a high-level diplomatic meeting between Ethiopian and Saudi foreign ministry officials in Addis Ababa in May 2026, followed by a visit from Ethiopia’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia to the Khamis Mushait prison in June. But inmates told the BBC the visit was rushed, and they did not get enough time to share their cases with the envoy. Within a week of the visit, more executions were carried out. The African Union’s human rights commission has also called on Ethiopia to intervene, but the BBC has not received a response to requests for comment from Ethiopian officials in either Riyadh or Addis Ababa.

In a July 13 statement, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said it maintains regular contact with Saudi authorities to “pursue appropriate remedies for Ethiopian citizens facing difficult circumstances,” and noted that nearly 2,000 Ethiopian detainees have benefited from royal amnesties to date — though it did not mention death penalty cases specifically.

For the dozens of Ethiopian inmates still waiting on death row, that official progress offers little comfort. Habtom has not even told his family back in Ethiopia he is sentenced to die. “I would rather they be told after I die than now,” he said. His childhood dream of finishing high school, attending college, and supporting his parents was destroyed by the Tigray war, and now he waits each day for the sound of guards opening his cell door to call his name. “We are living in deep fear and cannot even eat the food we are given,” he said. Desta, Habtom and dozens of other death row inmates are now publicly pleading for the international community to intervene to halt their executions.

The mass arrival of around 60,000 migrants at the border of Ceuta, Spain’s small North African enclave, has ignited a flood of unproven claims and speculative narratives surrounding what triggered the unprecedented surge, along with the potential geopolitical and domestic fallout of the crisis. To put the scale of this incident in perspective, the number of migrants who crossed into Ceuta over just two days — Thursday and Friday — equals roughly 70% of the enclave’s permanent resident population. At least 41 people have been confirmed dead, killed either by drowning during the dangerous crossing attempt or in a chaotic stampede at the frontier. What follows is a fact-based breakdown of the most widespread claims circulating about this crisis.

### Claim: Spain’s recent immigrant amnesty policy directly caused the border rush
Critics including former U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have argued that the Spanish government’s new amnesty program signaled to migrants that Spain has lax border policies, prompting the mass crossing. Trump explicitly blamed Spain’s “weak law, bad management” for the incident, while the U.S. State Department amplified this stance in a post on social platform X, claiming the crisis was “the direct result of the Spanish Government’s deliberate efforts to enable and facilitate mass illegal migration into Europe.”

In response, the Spanish government has firmly rejected this narrative, pointing instead to transnational criminal smuggling networks as the primary drivers of the crisis. Madrid notes that it has maintained strict enforcement against unauthorized border crossings while creating legal pathways for migrant workers that the country’s growing economy depends on.

Under the amnesty policy, migrants without residency permits can legalize their status if they can prove continuous residence in Spain for at least five years and entered the country before January 1, 2026. More than 1 million people submitted applications before the application window closed at the end of last month. Broader structural factors also push migration from Morocco: widespread poverty and extremely high youth unemployment, particularly outside of Morocco’s developed coastal tourist hubs, fueled widespread Gen Z-led pro-reform protests last year, pushing many young Moroccans to seek better economic prospects in Europe. Even with these context factors, the exact trigger for the sudden, massive surge remains unconfirmed.

### Claim: A misinterpreted Spanish Supreme Court ruling sparked the crossings
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has argued that a recent Supreme Court ruling was deliberately misrepresented by human smugglers to convince thousands of migrants to cross the border by swimming around the fixed border fence. The ruling in question established that migrants arriving by sea cannot be immediately deported without due process, a different standard from that applied to migrants who cross over land or climb the physical border barrier.

Human rights and migration activists corroborate that misinformation spread on social media played a major role in encouraging the mass departure. Achraf Maimouni, a Moroccan human rights activist, explained: “The departures were promoted in a certain way. At first, people were hearing that the border was open, and then everyone started referring to the Spanish court decision. That contributed to the crossings.”

### Claim: Morocco intentionally opened the border to enable the surge
The context of this incident traces back to a 2021 border crisis, when more than 8,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta after Moroccan border officials relaxed security checks, a move widely seen as diplomatic retaliation for Spain allowing a Western Saharan pro-independence leader to receive medical treatment in a Spanish hospital. That crisis was defused after Spain shifted its decades-long policy on the disputed Western Sahara region, and Sánchez met with Moroccan King Mohammed VI the following year.

In this far larger 2025 crisis, initial statements from Spanish officials confirmed that Moroccan authorities were collaborating to halt the surge. However, those initial efforts failed to stop thousands of migrants from crossing over the two-day period. An Associated Press freelance photographer based in Ceuta witnessed Moroccan gendarmes standing by without intervening as thousands of migrants passed near their posts to enter Ceuta on Thursday. It was only on Friday that Moroccan security forces escalated their response, deploying tear gas, batons and water cannons to disperse large crowds of migrants gathering at the border.

Morocco’s ambassador to Spain stated that the crisis unfolded against Rabat’s wishes and expressed hope that most migrants would return to Morocco. Notably, Morocco has never formally recognized Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and its sister enclave Melilla, despite the territories having been under Spanish control for centuries.

### Claim: The surge is retaliation for Spain’s positions on Gaza and Iran
Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories have circulated online claiming that the U.S. under the Trump administration and Israel encouraged Morocco to allow the mass crossing, in retaliation for Spain’s criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. While Trump has publicly attacked Spain for months and threatened to end trade with the country, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Spain of waging a diplomatic war against Israel, there is no verifiable evidence linking either country to the Ceuta border crisis.

### Claim: Most crossing migrants will eventually reach mainland Europe
Political leaders in neighboring Italy and France have already taken restrictive measures in response to the crisis, framing the moves as preparations to block migrants from entering their countries. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni even threatened to suspend Italy’s participation in the Schengen Area’s open border agreement with Spain, despite the fact that Italy shares no land border with Spain and is itself a major entry point for tens of thousands of Mediterranean migrants each year. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez also announced that France would strengthen border controls with Spain.

In reality, the impact of the surge will remain largely contained to Ceuta, with minimal spillover into mainland Spain or the rest of Europe. The Spanish government has confirmed it reached an agreement with Morocco to repatriate all migrants who entered Ceuta illegally. By Friday afternoon, more than half of the migrants who crossed had already returned to Morocco voluntarily. Those who remain in Ceuta will either be repatriated in the coming days or face extended periods of legal uncertainty, often in government-run detention centers.

Associated Press journalist Akram Oubachir contributed reporting from Casablanca, Morocco.