Spanish Intelligence and security reports declassified on Wednesday warned of possible “mass entries” of migrants into Ceuta at least 18 times before thousands crossed into Spain’s North African enclave from Morocco.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez 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 30th and 31st.
“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 1st and 28th — “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 29th 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, Sánchez 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”.
According to an analysis of the reports by Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE, the Spanish government received at least 18 warnings or alerts of possible mass crossings into Ceuta.
The government declassified the documents amid questions over Rabat’s role in the events and whether the Spanish government had been warned of the likelihood of mass entries.
Sánchez has insisted his government did not receive any report that would have allowed it to anticipate the scale of what was going to happen, nor anything containing “solid evidence that Morocco planned or carried out the episode”.
Doubts about Morocco’s role increased after the leak last week of a police report that pointed to the “permissiveness” of its security forces during the crisis.
A declassified document issued by military intelligence at midday on July 30 states that it is “highly likely that the Moroccan authorities are not actively encouraging the migratory wave, but have so far acted in a negligent and passive manner”.
The opposition accuses the government of failing to act despite being warned about what was going on and criticises it for exonerating Morocco, which it sees as being behind the mass entry.
“The government knew everything that was happening… They had the information. They are directly responsible for the invasion of Ceuta,” Ester Munoz, spokeswoman for the right-wing Popular Party in parliament, told reporters.
With additional reporting by The Local Spain’s Alex Dunham
