A Rumor Said the Border Was Open. Dozens Died at Ceuta.
A wave of false online claims that Spain had thrown open its border helped propel tens of thousands of people toward the enclave of Ceuta in late July, in a surge Spanish authorities say left at least 72 dead. Officials in Spain and Morocco say misleading videos and posts on TikTok, WhatsApp and other platforms — amplified by human traffickers and a misread court ruling — drove the deadly rush.
Tens of thousands of people surged across Morocco’s border into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta over two days in late July, overwhelming the North African territory and prompting Spain to deploy the military, CNN reported. More than 50,000 people crossed by land and sea, and more than 48,000 had returned to Morocco within 48 hours, NBC News reported. At least 72 people died — some by drowning, others crushed in a stampede against a breakwater — Spanish authorities said, according to Al Jazeera.
The rush did not begin at the fence. In the days before, false claims that Spain had effectively opened its border spread across TikTok, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, alongside videos of young men swimming from Morocco to Ceuta, CBS News reported. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and Morocco’s interior ministry both blamed the surge in part on online misinformation, CNN reported.
A false promise, shared online
Some of those who reached Ceuta told CBS News they had made a spontaneous decision to swim when they saw others doing it, after encountering social-media posts declaring that “Spain is an open door,” CBS News reported. Morocco’s authorities said an online campaign had circulated for weeks, romanticizing the crossing and misrepresenting the risk.
Morocco’s interior ministry said the crossings were the product of “the malicious exploitation of digital platforms, the dissemination of misleading information, the role of human trafficking networks, and the misinterpretation of legal and administrative information aimed at creating the false impression that entry into the European area could be achieved easily,” its spokesman, Rachid El Khalfi, said, according to CBS News.
A court ruling, misread
Central to the false narrative was a recent decision by Spain’s Supreme Court, which ruled that authorities cannot summarily deport migrants who arrive by sea without due process. The decision was narrow, but traffickers and would-be migrants took it to mean that anyone who reached Spanish waters could not be sent back, CNN reported.
Sánchez said the mass crossings amounted to a “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity” and blamed the influx on misinformation spread by people traffickers who had misrepresented the ruling, CNN reported. He also denounced as “selfish” the response of several European Union governments to the crisis, according to CNN.
Dozens dead, and a disputed toll
The human cost was revised upward for days. Spanish officials counted at least nine dead on the first day, CNN reported, a figure that reached 67 by Aug. 1, NPR reported, and at least 72 a day later, according to Al Jazeera. Morocco’s interior ministry disputed the Spanish count, saying 11 people had died, CBS News reported. Spain installed a 500-meter floating barrier along the sea border with Morocco in response, Al Jazeera reported.
An ‘invasion’ narrative, amplified
As the enclave absorbed the surge, the episode was seized on by anti-migrant politicians. Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party, posted a video on X calling the arrivals an “invasion” and accusing the government of “desperately calling in more hitmen to stay in power”; it drew more than 2.2 million views, CNN reported. The migrants had no route to reach the European mainland, a fact that did little to slow the apocalyptic framing spreading across feeds, according to CNN.
Most of those who crossed had returned to Morocco within days, and Ceuta was left counting its dead, CNN reported. For researchers who track how online falsehoods turn into offline harm, the sequence was a familiar one: a claim with no basis in fact, accelerated by platforms and profiteers, ending in deaths that officials on both sides of the border now trace, in part, to what people saw on their screens.