Most of 50,000 migrants voluntarily return from Ceuta to Morocco, says Spain

Reuters news agency at the enclave’s border saw Moroccan police in riot gear using tear gas to disperse some of the people amassed near the fences. Water cannon trucks were deployed and the charred remains of a bus and seven cars could be seen from clashes with the crowds.

On the other side, Spanish military vehicles lined up along sections of the border as dozens of migrants watched from a hilltop in Morocco, unable to cross.

Several hundred people could be seen returning to Morocco through border posts and holes in the fence, with some saying they could not find food or shelter in Ceuta.

“Honestly, I don’t even know why I came, and now I’m going back,” a young Moroccan man, who said he was from Tangier, told Reuters. “I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday, even though I brought some money with me … What we’re doing is neither good nor enjoyable.”

Ayman, a 20-year-old hairdresser from the port city of Larache who only gave one name, told Reuters he had crossed on Wednesday after a five-hour swim.

“There was no food inside Ceuta and we were kicked out badly by the (Spanish) army,” he said.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez travelled to Ceuta on Friday.

He called the mass crossing “a violation of Spain’s territorial sovereignty” and said authorities were speeding up the repatriation of those who had entered illegally, with full cooperation from Morocco.

Ceuta and ‌Melilla, Spanish autonomous cities in northern Morocco, have the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. Both periodically experience surges in attempted crossings by migrants seeking to reach ​Europe, but the scale of Thursday’s rush appeared unprecedented.

Right-wing parties around the continent blamed the incident on Spain’s comparatively lax migration policies, including an amnesty granted to hundreds of thousands of migrants this year.

Spain summoned the Italian ambassador to protest earlier comments by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who claimed Spain’s amnesty policy had “encouraged human trafficking”.