分类： world

A deadly explosion that tore through a popular restaurant in central Moscow Saturday evening has been labeled a brutal terrorist attack by the city’s top official, as Russian law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies continue their probe into the incident with no suspects or groups stepping forward to claim credit.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed the attack in a social media post Sunday, acknowledging the loss of innocent life and confirming that injured survivors were receiving targeted medical care at city-run hospitals across the capital. “Yesterday, a brutal terrorist act was committed in Moscow that claimed human lives. The victims are currently in the city’s hospitals, where they are receiving all necessary care,” Sobyanin wrote, stopping short of assigning blame for the coordinated attack.

Per Russian state media, which cited official local sources, three people were confirmed dead in the blast: a working security guard at the restaurant, one civilian guest, and the female attacker who carried the explosive device. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee, in statements carried by Russia’s official state news agency RIA Novosti, added that at least 21 other people sustained injuries of varying degrees when the device detonated at the venue on Kudrinskaya Square, a busy public space in the heart of the city.

The Moscow Investigative Committee confirmed Saturday evening that it had launched a full official investigation into the circumstances of the attack. As of early Sunday afternoon, Russian federal and local authorities had not released any new updates on the progress of the probe, and no individual or extremist organization had issued any public statement claiming responsibility for the bombing.

In the aftermath of a sudden, massive influx of tens of thousands of Moroccan migrants who swam across the border to reach Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta on July 30, the majority of those arrivals have now been escorted back to Moroccan territory by Spanish security forces. What began as an extraordinary mass crossing has ended in tragedy, with at least 67 migrants confirmed dead, their bodies recovered from the Strait of Gibraltar alongside discarded rubber flotation devices and swimming flippers. Beyond the human cost, the crisis has sent political shockwaves across the European Union, reopening long-simmering rifts over the bloc’s most divisive migration policy debates.

Root causes of the unprecedented surge remain unconfirmed, with two leading hypotheses emerging. One line of inquiry points to viral social media content that falsely promised an open, unregulated path into Europe for migrants. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, leader of the country’s Socialist government, argues that smugglers misrepresented a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling barring immediate pushbacks of sea arrivals to lure hopeful migrants. Notably, most participants in the crossing were Moroccan citizens who did not pay smuggler fees; instead, false claims that “Spain is open” spread rapidly across social platforms, with videos of young migrants in wetsuits jumping into the water and footage from inside Ceuta racking up tens of thousands of likes from accounts that only launched weeks earlier.

The other open question is whether the influx was a deliberate, organized act to weaponize migration for political gain, echoing the 2021 crisis on the Belarus-EU border. While Sanchez has refrained from blaming Morocco, a key Spanish ally that currently faces new tensions with Madrid over the Western Sahara dispute, critics argue that Moroccan border forces could not have missed large crowds gathering for the crossing. Observers also note that external actors have already seized on the crisis to exacerbate division in Europe: Russian state actors have gloated over the chaos that weakens allies of Ukraine, while former U.S. President Donald Trump, who faces an upcoming election and has a longstanding rift with Spain over its opposition to his Iran policy, has labeled the event a “catastrophic invasion.”

Within the EU, the crisis has sparked open confrontation between Spain and Italy, whose far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni moved quickly to condemn Sanchez’s approach. Meloni’s party, Fratelli d’Italia, early on shared viral images of migrants in Ceuta mocking what it called the “Sanchez model” favored by Italy’s left-wing opposition. Meloni then announced Italy would suspend its Schengen Zone free movement agreement with Spain, citing a national security threat. The move drew fierce anger from Madrid, which points out that Ceuta is not part of the Schengen area, meaning migrants could never travel unchecked to mainland Europe. Analysts widely view Meloni’s hardline stance as a political calculation: with Italian elections scheduled for next year and her coalition losing support to a more virulently anti-immigrant new party, the crisis gave her an opportunity to bolster her tough-on-migration credentials to recapture voters.

Meloni is far from alone in criticizing Spain’s migration approach. Her call for an urgent meeting of EU interior ministers this week has been co-signed by nearly two dozen EU heads of state, who are pushing to scrap policies they frame as “pull factors” drawing migrants to Europe. Their primary target is Spain’s controversial 2025 policy that allowed hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants to apply for work and residence permits to regularize their status, a pragmatic move for a rapidly aging country facing critical labor shortages. Notably, the migrants who arrived in Ceuta were not eligible for this program, which has already closed to new applicants.

In response to the crisis, Spanish authorities have moved quickly to secure the Ceuta border, extending barriers out into the water with lines of orange buoys patrolled by ships to deter future mass swimming crossings. For the next several weeks, Italian police will conduct random document checks on travelers arriving from Spain, a largely symbolic move that does little to alter cross-border travel in practice. Next week, EU interior ministers will convene to discuss strengthening the bloc’s external borders, with populist right-wing parties across the continent emboldened by the crisis to push for harder line policies.

Amid the political maneuvering and policy debates, the deepest tragedy of the event remains: dozens of young migrants who chased the false promise of a new life in Europe shared online now lie dead, their bodies returned to Morocco in coffins.

In the wake of an unprecedented mass influx of some 60,000 migrants crossing from Morocco into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta on July 30, the European Union has been forced into urgent diplomatic action, scheduling emergency talks for Tuesday to address the escalating migration crisis that has already sparked sharp divisions between member states. By early August, Spanish officials confirmed that nearly all of the migrants who entered the territory have returned to Morocco, but the human cost of the mass crossing has already climbed to at least 67 dead.

The crisis has laid bare deep rifts within the bloc over migration policy. Twenty-two EU member states have signed a joint letter addressed to European Council President Antonio Costa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Irish Taoiseach Michael Martin – as Ireland holds the rotating Council presidency – calling for coordinated bloc-wide action and stricter security at the EU’s external borders. The letter warns that what unfolded in Ceuta risks creating a dangerous perception that illegal entry into the EU is achievable, a narrative that could fuel further attempted crossings, erode public trust in the bloc’s common migration framework, and create ripple effects across all member states. It also frames the incident as a potential hybrid threat targeting EU border stability.

Spain, for its part, has pushed back against harsh criticism from several member states, condemning what it calls a “selfish, polarising and unlawful” response. Shortly after the surge, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced a one-month suspension of Italy’s participation in the EU’s Schengen border-free arrangement with Spain, a move that received public backing from Finland and Denmark. A handful of other states, including France and Portugal, have also announced they are reviewing or considering reinstating internal border checks, while Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has called on the bloc to evaluate all possible responses, including a broader suspension of Schengen cooperation.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has hit back at critics, noting that Ceuta has never been part of the Schengen Area, and confirming that his government regained full control of the border and blocked any unauthorised movement of migrants toward mainland Europe in less than 48 hours. In a separate letter to von der Leyen, Sánchez expressed deep concern over the actions of some European governments, arguing that while most member states extended solidarity and support to Spain, others opted to launch attacks driven by prejudice, misinformation, ignorance, or narrow domestic political interests.

On Friday, Sánchez pointed to migrant smuggling networks as the main culprits behind the surge, noting that traffickers exploited a recent ruling from Spain’s Supreme Court that limited the government’s authority to carry out immediate deportations of migrants who arrive by sea. By Saturday, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters that the situation in Ceuta had returned almost entirely to normal, with local businesses having reopened their doors. To prevent future mass crossings, the government is currently developing an inflatable water barrier to block irregular maritime entry routes into the enclave.

Top EU officials have echoed growing concern over the incident. Von der Leyen described images of the mass crossing as unacceptable, writing on social media that “We cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called on Moroccan authorities to immediately take back all irregular migrants that crossed into Ceuta, while the United Kingdom, which left the EU in 2020, has offered assistance to Spain: UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham confirmed he had spoken with Sánchez over the weekend and that the country was providing all possible support to address the aftermath of the crisis.

Long a key flashpoint for irregular migration toward Europe, Ceuta – along with the neighboring enclave of Melilla – forms the EU’s only land border with Africa. Many migrants attempt to reach the enclave by swimming short distances from the Moroccan coast, and large-scale crossing attempts are a common occurrence during the summer months, often organized via social media platforms. The 2026 surge is far larger than the last major incident in 2021, when roughly 8,000 migrants entered Ceuta over several days, sparking a major diplomatic rift between Spain and Morocco. Contextual factors including recent anti-government protests led by Gen Z in Morocco, driven by demands for better economic opportunities and improved public services, have also contributed to greater migration pressure in the region.

Spain has maintained one of the more liberal approaches to migration within the EU in recent months: in April this year, the government approved a sweeping regularization plan that grants legal status to 500,000 undocumented migrants already residing in the country, allowing them to integrate formally into the Spanish workforce.