Spain has cancelled all leave for military personnel stationed in Ceuta amid fears of a fresh invasion of illegal migrant crossings from Morocco. The decision follows the entry of at least 72,000 people into the 7.1-square-mile Spanish territory on July 30, which resulted in the death of at least 80 people.
Leave cancellation ordered
Reports of online group chats plotting a new onslaught prompted a major U-turn on all approved holidays for troops who were rushed to Ceuta to deal with the crisis. Cadena Ser, a Spanish radio station, reported it had seen a directive sent from the defence ministry to the Ceuta general command on Sunday, entitled “cancellation of leave”.
It said all leave and time off for military personnel had been cancelled until further notice, except in “exceptional duly justified cases” due to the “service requirements necessitating an increase in the activities deployed in Ceuta” in light of the “migration crisis”. A spokesman for the Spanish defence ministry has since confirmed that all leave had been cancelled for troops in Ceuta, The Telegraph reported.
Fresh assault feared
The border crisis is reaching a boiling point once again as fears grow that people-smuggling gangs are planning a huge fresh assault on the Morocco-Ceuta border on August 15. Spanish officials are locked in a battle against human traffickers who are using social media to spread misinformation and exploit Spain's lenient immigration laws.
Elsewhere, Brussels is stepping up efforts to disrupt online human trafficking networks following the surge of migrants entering Ceuta. Tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen held talks with Meta and TikTok after reports revealed smugglers were using social media apps to spread deceptive information and co-ordinate entry routes.
Platforms respond
“Platforms identified a combination of smugglers offering services with various illegal routes or fake documents,” an EU official who took part in the meetings said. A spokesperson for Meta, which owns WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, said it had a team monitoring the situation in Ceuta to remove “content that offers to provide, facilitate or seek human smuggling services”.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for TikTok said: “In response to the evolving situation in Ceuta, we have mobilised a dedicated task force as part of our well-established global protocol for responding to emergency events. We are also connecting our community to reliable information, including from Newtral in Spain and MapExpress in Morocco, when they search for related keywords.”
