European news is currently dominated by stories about Ceuta. Last week, shocking footage spread across South Korea as well, showing crowds breaking down border checkpoints and flooding in endlessly. Frankly, when I first saw the initial footage, I even wondered if it was generated by AI. The location is a place called Ceuta, where roughly 60,000 Moroccans poured into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta over the weekend.

1. 60,000 People Poured In Overnight
Now, the Spanish military has been deployed, and the vast majority of the people have been sent back to Morocco.

[Spanish Military PA Announcement: Please go back. There will be no adverse consequences in Spain or Morocco.]

Unfortunately, as tens of thousands of people flocked to the border all at once, over 70 Moroccans lost their lives. With 60,000 people flooding into a place with a population of barely over 80,000, even if the Moroccan people meant no harm, it certainly would not have been easy for the residents of Ceuta to remain calm and handle the situation casually. To put it in perspective for us, it would be as if 500,000 unauthorized people from China or Japan suddenly poured into Jeju Island, which has a population of around 700,000, within a day or two.

[Lydia / Resident of Ceuta, Spain: If migrants have nowhere to eat and sleep, they will break into our homes. They will drive us out and attack us.]

To briefly explain Ceuta, it is not attached to mainland Spain, but is Spanish territory located on the African continent. Because it is a city bordering Morocco, it is a place where quite a few Moroccans have illegally entered in the past. Back in 2021, about 8,000 people crossed over at once, but this is the first time an overwhelming scale of 60,000 people has entered simultaneously. At the time, Spanish border control officers were stationed around the border. However, seeing them stand there blankly, unable to do anything, was striking and shocking.

2. Crossing the Border en Masse: How Was It Possible?
How was such an unprecedented, large-scale crossing of the border possible all at once? Since the beginning of the crisis, various media outlets have been reporting and Spanish authorities have been investigating to answer this question. No definitive answer has been found yet. However, what is clear is that it was not a systematically organized action. That said, multiple testimonies emerged indicating that border surveillance on the Moroccan side had slackened. The common narrative is that as that news spread rapidly via social media within Morocco, people desperate to escape Morocco flocked to the border all at once. In Morocco, where youth unemployment approaches 30%, young people in particular have an extremely strong drive to escape the country and go to Europe to earn money and help their families back home.

[Migrant of Moroccan Origin: There are no good teachers, and life in Morocco is hard. That's why I swam all the way here.]

Ultimately, while the situation was not created by a premeditated, organized plan, the initial trigger for this crisis—loosening border surveillance in a population brimming with the desire to escape Morocco—can certainly be attributed to the Moroccan government.

3. "Being Friendly with Algeria? That's Infuriating!"
Then why on earth did the Moroccan government neglect border surveillance at this particular time, effectively allowing illegal immigrants to break through the Spanish border in a single blow? Here, another country, Algeria, enters the picture alongside Spain and Morocco. To put it briefly, Morocco and Algeria are neighboring countries. They are in a bitter rivalry, disputing territory along their border. They are like sworn enemies, yet the Spanish Prime Minister visited Algeria on June 20, about ten days before the Ceuta crisis. Spain had actually traditionally maintained a pro-Morocco stance. For Spain to suddenly visit Algeria and display strengthened cooperative ties was bound to infuriate Morocco. Exactly ten days later, the Ceuta border collapsed helplessly under a wave of Moroccans. While there is no concrete evidence to point to this as a planned operation of retaliation by the Moroccan government, it is reasonable to suspect a connection given that the Moroccan government allowed lax border management and tacitly permitted illegal immigration. For these reasons and more, although the entire world witnessed this shocking border neutralization, local areas in Ceuta are gradually returning to daily life as the majority of Moroccans have been expelled.

4. The Fallout Spreading Across All of Europe
The problem, however, is that the fallout has splashed across the entirety of Europe. Immigration is such a severe issue in Europe that finding a country quiet on the matter is nearly impossible. A primary reason far-right and conservative factions are gaining traction in Europe is precisely their hardline stance on immigration. With the Ceuta crisis erupting under these circumstances, other European nations immediately began criticizing the Spanish government. Their argument is: How could you let such an incident happen due to poor border management, and what happens if illegal immigrants enter our countries through a lax Spain? Immediately, Italy announced that it would enforce immigration screening exclusively for arrivals from Spain for one month. France also tripled the number of personnel stationed at its land border checkpoints with Spain to tighten surveillance. As you know, European nations are signatories to the Schengen Agreement, allowing individuals to cross borders freely without passport checks. Suspending this rule specifically for departures from Spain was proposed, and while countries like Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden have not yet taken direct action, they have publicly endorsed Italy's tightened screening measures. Finland's Minister of the Interior even launched a scathing critique, declaring that Spain had completely failed in protecting the Schengen area border. Moreover, even European Commission President stepped in, declaring that illegal immigration cannot be tolerated and demanding that Spain take swift action. The Commission President typically maintains a relatively neutral stance on issues carrying potential conflict among EU member states, but the shocking figure of 60,000 people flooding in seems to have left no other choice. In reality, although Ceuta is Spanish territory, individuals cannot travel freely to the rest of Europe the way they can from mainland Spain. Identity verification is required not only when entering other countries but even when entering mainland Spain itself. Fully aware of these circumstances, politicians are nevertheless adopting hardline stances because public sentiment regarding immigrants is overwhelmingly negative. The Spanish government, already facing domestic backlash from its citizens, appears deeply aggrieved by the outside reprimands. In particular, it harbors resentment toward Italy, countering that since 2021, illegal entries into Italy have been double those of Spain, suggesting Italy should mind its own business. Spain maintains that while the Ceuta crisis was an undeniable violation of its territory and that it will handle things better moving forward, EU member states should not shatter mutual solidarity by measures like tightening internal border checks. Nevertheless, because lingering grievances among other European countries toward Spain—which had been relatively lenient toward illegal immigrants—had already piled up, Spain is taking heavy criticism this week. EU interior ministers are holding emergency meetings this week to discuss countermeasures and ways to resolve the crisis. For now, the Ceuta crisis does not appear likely to escalate further. However, this incident has once again underscored just how volatile the immigration issue is in Europe—where public sentiment against immigrants is continuously worsening—and how fragile that link remains. Consequently, a second or third Ceuta crisis could erupt at any moment.

(Reported by Kwon Yeongin | Produced by Shin Hee-suk | Filmed by Kim Si-nae | Video by Jang Yu-jin | Graphics by Lee Soo-min | Produced by SBS Digital News)