The tiny Spanish territory overrun by migrants

Through the floating debris left behind by hours of chaos and frenzy, still more people came to Ceuta today, landing on Spanish territory, having skirted round the headland from Morocco.More surges by land, too, adding to the tens of thousands of people who have breached this border with mainland Africa since just yesterday.Spain's left -wing government has sent reinforcements, projecting a tougher response.It says it's cooperating with Morocco to end this sudden crisis, but it's already sustained major political damage.

We define what happened yesterday as an attack, a violation of Spain's territorial integrity.Ceuta is a Spanish city, and what happened yesterday deserves our strongest possible rebuke and condemnation.

But what about explanation?Spain's prime minister blaming trafficking networks for spreading viral disinformation about a Spanish Supreme Court judgment preventing repatriation for those arriving by sea.Others accusing Morocco of allowing, even engineering, the crossings as punishment for Spain's warming relations with Algeria.Moroccan government sources issuing denials of that to the media today.Undeniable, the will, the desperation on display by thousands upon thousands to chance everything on a ticket into the EU.

I'm so angry because there are so many people here and all the shops are closed.There's no food.There's nothing.We're all Moroccans who came here looking for a different life, a new and good life.Because in Morocco, there's no future.There's nothing.

No jobs, no government.We have nothing.We're dead.

This tiny Spanish territory of 85 ,000 people utterly overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with a 70 % overnight rise in population.Spain says most of the migrants, many hungry, exhausted.were helped return today, some taking warnings with them that their attempts were in vain.Nonetheless, these scenes triggering political spasms around Europe, Italy suspending its Schengen visa -free travel arrangement with Spain, Finland and Denmark publicly toying with the idea.Spain, a regular target for Trumpian invective in recent months, the U .S.

president didn't waste this opportunity today.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States of America It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people, and that same thing is going to happen to us if the Republicans don't get elected, except worse.

Spain's prime minister traveled to Ceuta this afternoon.He's proposing extending a physical barrier into the sea to bypass the protections provided by the Supreme Court judgment, but less clear exactly the legal mechanism for quickly returning those migrants who refuse to go back to Morocco themselves.

I heard from unverified sources that there's been this agreement between the two governments that they will be returned, everyone will be returned.But how is the question, I think, and over what period of time as well?

The consequences of the chaos extend beyond the politics of it all.Dozens were killed, many more injured trying to get into theatre.In a year that European leaders had been hailing a sharp drop in undocumented migration, a reminder that the motivations behind it, the appetite for risk, remain as strong as ever.

Harry Fawcett reporting there.Well, earlier I spoke to Gerald Knauss.He's the chair of the European Stability Initiative, a think tank focused on EU enlargement and integration.I asked him what he thought had happened in Ceuta.

The number in the last 24 hours was bigger than all irregular migrants all of last year from all of Africa and Spain in one year.So this is not something that isslowly building up.It was an explosive development and it has to have something to do with changes in the policy of Morocco.

So you're saying this, the Moroccan authorities either allowed people to leave, might have been complicit in them leaving, turned a blind eye.What's going on?

Listen, I don't want to spread news on things I don't know.But what we do know is that in 2021, Something similar happened.8 to 10 ,000 people crossed to Ceuta.I don't know what the reasons are this time, if there is a specific reason, but what we do know is that Morocco can stop such numbers of people getting into the water.Morocco can promise to take them back quickly.The Spanish authorities are saying that there is cooperation now.

Well, we will see, because what we now need is images that show that the people who've crossed will be returned or go back to Morocco in a very, very near future.

Some people out there are blaming the Spanish authorities, the Spanish government, for passing the kind of legislation that might attract people.But that's not entirely accurate, is it?

No, that is completely inaccurate.There is a campaign in the social media by those who don't like the Spanish government for whatever reason.But this rhetoric shouldn't deceive us.In the last three years, Spain had less migrants irregularly arriving than Italy.Spain also cooperated with other EU countries, taking back people who arrived in Spain and then went to France or Germany.Spain took them back.

Italy didn't.So the idea that Spain is somehow weak on migration is completely wrong.

So apparently 20 ,000 of the 60 ,000 roughly are in the process of going back to Morocco.What about the other 40 ,000?And if they wanted to claim asylum in the EU, could they?

They could, but I actually expect many will not do it.In the past, many of the Moroccans know that their chance of getting protection is very low.The message that Spain and the European Union needs to send is that this will not open the doors for people to come to the European continent.And the biggest mistake, and this is a mistake Spain, Italy, Greece and EU countries made together in the last year, has been that they haven't worked on the kind of agreements that are now possible legally.safe third -country agreements where Spain and Italy and Greece could say from now on anybody who comes like this Will be sent back and if not to Morocco then to a safe third country That's the only way to stop people dying at sea and that's the only way to control irregular migration And by the way, that's also true in the British Channel.The parallels are enormous I mean obvious we've had 800 people leave France to go to Britain here.

We have people leave all the time North Africa to go to Europe.In both situations, the solution has to be the same.Make it futile to cross without violating human rights.

Everyone is reacting here because it is such a political, such a hot political topic.Are they overreacting?

In the last half year, the total number of people who crossed from all of Africa and all of Asia to Greece, to Italy, to Spain altogether was 50 ,000.So we don't have mass migration.

And the images speak louder than the statistics, don't they?

Images always beat statistics.And that is a lesson for those who want to manage migration.We need the images of people returning.If we want to have control, we need to control the images.

Gerhard Canals, thank you very much indeed.

I thank you.