Play00:59Spain escorts migrants back to MoroccoFive more bodies recovered along coast after more ​than ​50,000 people entered Spanish enclaveThe NationalAugust 02, 2026The death toll from the migrant rush into ​Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco has reached at least 72 after five more ⁠bodies were found along the coast. More than 50,000 people crossed into Ceuta by land and sea in an unprecedented surge that began on Thursday at one of the EU's two land borders with ⁠Africa, prompting alarm across the bloc. More than 48,000 people returned to Morocco within 48 hours and more returned over ⁠the weekend, Spanish authorities said.The Spanish ‌government representative in Ceuta, Miguel Angel Perez, told reporters on Sunday that, in addition to the ​72 fatalities, more than 1,000 people had been treated by health services. The situation in the city had improved markedly, he said, but more needs to be done to re-establish normality. Some migrants drowned and others were crushed while trying to climb a breakwater and a border fence. Many had been encouraged to migrate by social media rumours.“It pains me deeply that young people are dying at sea,” said Karima Abenaz, a French national in Ceuta with family in Morocco. “It’s not right that, in the year 2026, women with children as young as two months old should be crossing the sea only to die.“In Morocco, there’s food, there’s everything we need. If we don’t have a decent job, we should go on strike and demand ​our rights from the government. We shouldn’t be dying at sea, it’s ‌not right.”Authorities have reinforced police and army patrols and on Saturday ⁠installed a 500-metre floating barrier off Ceuta. Twenty-two EU member states wrote a letter asking for co-ordinated action to protect external borders and other measures after the incident. Italy suspended passport-free Schengen travel arrangements with Spain for one month.Spain has adopted a more open stance on migrants than most other EU ​countries, introducing a programme to grant residency to more than half a million undocumented people.It has rejected suggestions that the scheme encouraged the rush into Ceuta, saying that those who entered Ceuta irregularly could not travel on to mainland Spain or elsewhere in the Schengen zone.Updated: August 02, 2026, 6:06 PM