Shocking footage has emerged showing Spanish police officers advancing along a sun-baked beach in Ceuta, long weapons raised, as groups of migrants splash and swim just offshore.
In the dramatic clip circulating online, officers in black uniforms, some marked ‘Policia Nacional’, stride across the sand while figures bob in the Mediterranean waves. Later scenes capture large clusters of exhausted young men sitting or standing behind makeshift barriers on the shore, with one individual seen running inland carrying a bag.
The video, posted amid the chaotic aftermath of Europe’s latest border crisis, appears to show authorities using force to confront those still trying to linger or move after the unprecedented surge.
Just days earlier, as many as 50,000 to 60,000 people, mostly young Moroccan men, poured into the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco. Many swam around breakwaters or scrambled over fences in scenes of pure mayhem that left at least 67 to 72 dead, some drowned and others crushed in the stampede.
Ceuta, home to only about 84,000 residents, was completely overwhelmed. Spanish soldiers and police were rushed in, armoured vehicles deployed, and a floating barrier hastily installed to try to seal the sea route.
Most of the arrivals, more than 48,000 according to Spain’s Interior Ministry, were pushed or persuaded back across the border within 48 hours. Yet hundreds of holdouts remain, many of them sub-Saharan Africans who refuse to return to Morocco. They have gathered on beaches such as El Trampolín, sleeping on cardboard, hungry and under constant police watch.
Residents have reported fights breaking out when food and water are in limited supply. Some locals formed their own groups to confront stragglers in the streets, while soldiers continue sweeping the hills and beaches.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the mass crossing a “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity.” Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska declared the situation “almost entirely reversed,” but troops and police remain on high alert.
The footage of officers confronting swimmers on the beach has fuelled fierce online debate, with some praising the firm response and others warning that Europe’s southern borders remain dangerously exposed.
As the last migrants cling on in the North African outpost, the question hanging over Ceuta is how long the pressure can be contained and whether more dramatic scenes like those in the video are still to come.
