Ceuta, Spain. Viral videos and misinformation about Spanish migration rules were linked to a mass movement of migrants towards the Spanish enclave of Ceuta last week, according to the account. More than 80 people drowned or were crushed in a stampede, official tallies showed.
Online calls spread
The movement reportedly began with a small number of young people before growing to tens of thousands who attempted to reach Ceuta by swimming by last Thursday.
Videos shared online encouraged people to try to enter the enclave. Some were posted by a Spanish news outlet seeking to highlight migration pressures, while others repeated claims that migrants reaching Ceuta would not be returned.
One video showed a young Moroccan man in Germany saying that people entering Ceuta would not be sent back. The original post was deleted, but it was later republished by other accounts.
Court ruling misinterpreted
The online claims followed a Spanish Supreme Court ruling published three weeks earlier. The ruling stated that migrants intercepted at sea could not be immediately pushed back at the borders of Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s North African territories.
Legal experts said the decision did not prevent migrants from being summarily returned afterwards. However, claims circulated that anyone reaching Ceuta by sea or land could not be sent back.
Ceuta has long attracted migrants seeking to enter Europe.
False deadline claims
Posts on Meta platforms from July 7, including one that received more than 28,000 likes, falsely stated that Spain’s programme to regularise hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants would end on July 30. Similar messages circulated in the early hours of that date.
In fact, migrants who had already been in Spain for at least five months before the end of 2025 could apply between April and June 30. The Spanish government received more than twice the 500,000 applications it had expected and did not extend the deadline.
Most videos and online groups that amplified calls to travel to Ceuta have since been deleted, and the dates of their original publication are unclear. Morocco prosecuted dozens of suspected online instigators in 2024 following a foiled mass crossing.
