Plans for another mass migrant crossing into Ceuta spreading online

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Spanish authorities are monitoring social media posts that suggest a potential online campaign to mobilize another mass migrant crossing into the Spanish-controlled territory of Ceuta next week.

More than 72,000 people crossed illegally into the exclave last week, drawing global headlines and condemnation from world leaders including President Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Of those, 70,000 have since been returned to Morocco, a Spanish Interior Ministry spokesperson told CBS News on Friday.

CBS News has reviewed dozens of posts on Facebook that suggest a renewed push for migrants to cross the border from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta on Aug. 15, just over a week after the first rush of migrants. 

CBS News cannot verify the identities of the accounts, but the posts are being shared on two public Facebook groups named “Migration to Ceuta Inshallah” and “Moroccan migrants (Harraga Maroc).” The two groups collectively have more than 74,000 members.  

“The gathering at the border will be on Saturday, 15 August 2026, at the Ceuta crossing (Bab Sebta / El Tarajal). It will be somewhat different, God willing. August 15 is a holiday in Spain, but the border crossing operates 24/24 — there may simply be a lot of crowds,” one such post read.

“The National Police and the Civil Guard are monitoring this matter on social media to gather the necessary information to make appropriate decisions at any given time, based on the level of threat,” Raul Diaz, a spokesperson for the Spanish Interior Ministry, told CBS News on Friday. 

A spokesperson for Facebook’s parent company, Meta, told CBS News in a statement on Friday that it has a team “monitoring the situation in Ceuta in real time and removing content that violates our policies — including content that offers to provide, facilitate or seek human smuggling services.”

The company also said third-party fact-checking partners in Europe are working to debunk content that contains misinformation.

Both Moroccan and Spanish officials have attributed last week’s illegal mass crossing of tens of thousands of migrants into both Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish-controlled territory in North Africa bordering Morocco, to a combination of human trafficking networks and misinformation fueled on social media platforms. 

Spanish news outlet Mañaneros reported Thursday that it had obtained a six-page report from Spanish law enforcement examining the possibility of another mass migrant crossing into the Spanish territory of Ceuta on Aug. 15.

The report, based on open-source intelligence, examined Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram groups with memberships ranging from around 400,000 to just over 422,000 people, Mañaneros reported. The accounts in those groups consistently made references to Aug. 15, as well as engaged in discussions around departure points and logistics, according to the news outlet.

CBS News has reached out to the Spanish Civil Guard, the law enforcement body that reportedly authored the document, for comment.

Moroccan authorities blamed a similar online misinformation campaign for the first round of crossings on July 30. 

José María Gil Garre, the co-director of the Madrid-based International Security Observatory, wrote a 70-page report compiling lists of WhatsApp groups, TikTok accounts, and Facebook pages that spread information encouraging Moroccans to cross into Ceuta. He found that the posts intensified after a July 8 Spanish Supreme Court ruling that made it more difficult for Spanish authorities to summarily return Moroccan migrants arriving in Ceuta by sea. 

“When the Supreme Court ruling became public, they started manipulating the ruling. They claimed that if people swam into Ceuta, like the old ‘wet foot’ policy between Cuba and the United States. Once they touched Spanish soil, they would no longer have any problems,” Garre said. “But that’s simply not true. You can swim into Ceuta, but you cannot leave Ceuta. If you’re there irregularly, you cannot travel to mainland Spain.”

Abdelhadi, a commerce and marketing student from Casablanca who joined the mass rush into Ceuta last week, told CBS News that he believed the ruling meant he would be granted asylum in Europe if he could reach Ceuta. 

“We thought that if we could stay for one month, then we’d be able to go to Spain, but when we entered, we found out that it is full and there is no place to stay,” Abdelhadi told CBS News in Ceuta on July 31. 

Diaz, the Spanish Interior Ministry spokesman, confirmed to CBS News on Friday that “a ‘self-serving interpretation’ by smuggling networks regarding a Supreme Court ruling” contributed to the crisis. Diaz clarified that the ruling only “prohibited the immediate return of migrants who swam to Ceuta and Melilla, given the absence of physical barriers demarcating the border.”

According to pathologists cited in a Reuters News Agency report on Friday, 80 migrants died making the crossing.