On July 31, 2026, the Spanish newspaper EL PAÍS posted on X that the Interior Ministry had confirmed 48,300 of the 50,000 migrants who entered Ceuta had already returned to Morocco. The post was timestamped at 8:17 PM that same day and linked to live coverage of what Spanish and European officials have described as an extraordinary border emergency.
The broader event behind the claim is an unprecedented wave of irregular crossings into the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta, on the north African coast across from Morocco. According to Univision's same-day reporting, the surge built gradually through the first half of July 2026 but exploded on Thursday, July 30, when thousands of people crossed on foot along the El Tarajal breakwater and by swimming from nearby beaches, taking advantage of a Spanish Supreme Court ruling that border repatriation is not applicable to people who enter the country by sea. The Spanish government responded by deploying the Armed Forces, Civil Guard divers, and naval support, while Moroccan authorities used water cannons and tear gas in the border town of Fnideq to push crowds back. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the episode as "an attack on the territorial integrity of Spain" and announced plans to install maritime buoys as a physical barrier.
The specific figure of 48,300 returns is corroborated by at least three independent outlets reporting on July 31, 2026. Univision, citing Interior Ministry estimates, wrote that "48,300 of the 50,000 migrants who entered Ceuta irregularly have already returned to Morocco." Canal Extremadura reported the same number, noting that Interior had counted about 13,000 returns by 12:30 PM and roughly half of all arrivals by 2:00 PM, with a flow of about 150 people per minute crossing back into Morocco. El Diario de Hoy, citing EFE and Interior sources, added the precise timing, stating that by 6:00 PM Spanish time on July 31, 48,300 of the 50,000 migrants who had entered irregularly had returned. All three outlets attribute the figure directly to the Spanish Interior Ministry, led by Fernando Grande-Marlaska, matching the attribution in the original EL PAÍS post.
There are some caveats worth noting. The 50,000 total figure comes from Interior's own estimate; Ceuta's regional president, Juan Jesús Vivas, has put the total closer to 60,000, suggesting the exact entry count remains contested. Reported death tolls also vary across coverage: El Diario de Hoy cited at least 24 dead according to Spanish authorities, while Univision reported at least 57 and 34 in different places in the same article. These discrepancies concern peripheral details of the crisis rather than the specific return number being checked. The political fallout has also been significant, with Italy, Finland, and Denmark pushing to suspend Spain from the Schengen area and France tightening its own border with Spain.
The central claim — that 48,300 of 50,000 migrants who entered Ceuta had returned to Morocco, as confirmed by Spain's Interior Ministry — is supported by multiple independent, same-day reports from Spanish-language outlets covering the same event. The numbers, the attribution to Interior, the date, and the location all line up across sources, and no reviewed coverage contradicts the figure as of July 31, 2026.
