Moroccan archbishop says surprise Ceuta crossing reflects complex landscape
"This case can’t be simplified — politics plays a part, but you have to examine all the variables."
An estimated 80,000 people flooded across the border from Morocco to Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in Morocco, in a matter of hours on July 30, overwhelming the city of just under 83,000 inhabitants.
It is not entirely clear what caused the mass border crossing. The vast majority of the undocumented migrants returned to Morocco after Spanish authorities made it clear that they would not be permitted to stay. But around 7,000 have remained in Ceuta, including an estimated 1,000 minors.
The crisis sent the Spanish religious and political worlds into turmoil, with some in the Church – including the president of the bishops’ conference – calling the crisis an “invasion,” while others focused on the humanitarian response.
The Pillar spoke with Archbishop Emilio Rocha, OFM, of Tangier about the unexpected mass exodus and return of people last week, the situation on the ground in Morocco now, and the broader situation surrounding migration in the region.
The interview was conducted in Spanish and has been edited for length and clarity.
What happened at the border between Ceuta and Morocco on July 30th? And what is the situation today, both in Ceuta and on the Moroccan side of the border?
What happened on July 30th coincided with Throne Day, the most important civil holiday in Morocco, since it marks the anniversary of King Mohammed VI’s coronation. What took place is something that has happened for many years, but on a smaller scale: the mass entry of people from the Moroccan border in a few hours. Most of them are Moroccan, but there were also quite a few sub-Saharan migrants.
The latest figures from the Spanish government indicate 72,000 people entered a city of 80,000. So they practically doubled the population of a city bordered to the south by the Moroccan border and to the north by the Mediterranean. It’s a tiny enclave with no way out beyond the Mediterranean or back towards Morocco.
Thousands of people entered the city in a surprising march, because it was a day when the roads in that area were under heavy surveillance. Ceuta sits right next to the Moroccan city of M’diq, where the king was holding the Throne Day celebration.
But thousands of people got through via the breakwater. By crossing the water, they left Morocco after a very short swim.
In Spain, there’s talk that people took advantage of a ruling by Spain’s Supreme Court, which decided that while someone who crosses a physical border can be returned to their country of origin without much issue, if it’s done via a non-physical border, like the sea, they aren’t subject to that kind of summary return.
There’s also talk that the Spanish government’s own migrant regularization process from a few months earlier could have been a trigger. What’s certain is that 72,000 people entered irregularly into a very small city, creating a major difficulty within the city, apart from the human drama of those coming in.
I think many of them weren’t from northern Morocco but from the interior of the country, and so didn’t know how to swim. It’s impossible to drown over such a short stretch if you know how to swim. But they jumped in with very flimsy flotation devices, seeing that the distance seemed very short.
But we’re at the Strait of Gibraltar, with very strong currents running from the Mediterranean toward the Atlantic. So if you go out and swim and you want to go in a straight line, the sea pushes you toward the Atlantic. There’s talk of roughly 100 dead: at least 72 bodies have been found in Spain; another 12 to 15 counted by Moroccan authorities, and then several missing. It’s a human tragedy.
The situation today is calmer. There was a massive voluntary return of Moroccans back to Morocco, encouraged by the Spanish authorities. I think many understood that Ceuta, being such a small city with no land border with the rest of Spain, doesn’t offer much to them.
It’s not like entering through Andalusia in the south, where you can reach other parts of Spain or Europe — in Ceuta you only have the Mediterranean ahead of you. So most understood that they couldn’t build a life project in this city, and they’re going back.
There’s talk that around 2,000 remain, according to the central government, or 6,000 according to the Ceuta government. My understanding is that many of them are sub-Saharan migrants, from countries and political situations where it’s possible to apply for political refugee status, like Sudan. These are, for the most part, the ones who have stayed in Ceuta, while the Moroccans who remain in Ceuta are a very small number.
Some have called this mass border crossing an invasion. Others speak of desperate people fleeing hunger, and also of Europe’s need to take in more migrants. What’s the reality here? And why did 70,000 or 80,000 people decide to cross the border in a single day?
This is a mystery to me. Several opinions have circulated in the European media. There’s talk of social media posts claiming the border was open, and it’s quite curious that, on the king’s holiday of all days, when there was heavy surveillance, people crossed as if nothing were stopping them.
Some call it an invasion — etymologically speaking, it was: a large mass of people entering another country’s territory. Politically, I don’t know. There’s a long-standing Moroccan claim over Ceuta and Melilla, and it’s possible some are interpreting it that way.
For everyone, this was a surprise. I took part in Throne Day celebrations because, under royal protocol, the bishop of the diocese where the ceremony is held is part of the group of 50 people who greet the king that day.
On the way back from the event, we saw hundreds of young people running up the road toward the north. We thought: are these people leaving a football match? A concert? Because they were mostly young men running at three in the afternoon under a blazing sun, and we didn’t understand it.
There were police there, but nobody was doing anything. So what’s behind it? Well, I don’t know. Hunger? Certainly not. There’s no starvation in Morocco. Morocco is a country with great social inequality, a country that’s growing, but whose economic development doesn’t reach the whole population. There are situations of poverty and precarity, but not of starvation. I can understand that many of these young people see prosperity pass right in front of their faces, always heading elsewhere while never reaching them. That could push them toward Europe, which we Europeans, for our part, sell as a paradise, a marvel.
You don’t think migrant-smuggling mafias may have been involved, as has been said on social media?
I don’t think so, because smuggling mafias operate for money. These young people crossed without money, often without even a shirt, barely wearing flip-flops, many without even a backpack or belongings — so they don’t seem like people who paid a smuggling mafia to cross the border. Smuggling mafias are involved in crossings by small boats and things of that sort.
So it remains a surprise and a mystery. All these interpretations have a point, but I think at this stage we don’t know the specific cause.
What has been the role of the diocese and the Church in Morocco in caring for the returnees, and what more can be done on both sides of the border?
First, some context on the Church in Morocco would help. This is a large country, about 280,000 square miles, similar to Spain, divided roughly into two dioceses that correspond to the former Spanish and French protectorates before independence: the Archdiocese of Rabat, which covers 80% of the territory, and the Archdiocese of Tangier, which covers the former Spanish protectorate — precisely the north, up to Algeria. It’s a small diocese, about 30,000 square kilometers.
Separately, Western Sahara is under an apostolic prefect, also Spanish, Msgr. Mario León, OMI. Politically, this region is peculiar: in practice it functions as a Moroccan province — the police are Moroccan, the authorities are Moroccan, the health system is Moroccan — but there’s a dispute over its legal recognition.
According to the Pontifical Yearbook, Tangier has 3,000 Catholics, but I’m convinced there are more. Both Rabat and Tangier are particularly lively dioceses because of the significant presence of young sub-Saharan people, many of them on scholarships from the Moroccan government.
However, most of these young people return to their home countries once they finish their studies. So you have a stable population in the diocese, mostly European and elderly, and then younger people who are students, diplomats, or businesspeople, who usually stay here between three and five years.
This means the diocese changes a lot. Both in Rabat and in Tangier we lose 25% of our Catholics every year and gain another 25%. So the pastoral plan is very hard to keep stable with so little continuity. But while these young people are here, they are truly a source of life and joy for our parish communities.
It’s a small diocese where, for the past 12 or 15 years — less so now — there’s been a very strong pattern of migration settling in, because being right at the point where Morocco meets the Mediterranean, and therefore Europe — eight miles from Tarifa, in Spain — it acts almost like a bottleneck: people arrive here, and those who can get across, do; those who can’t, stay here.
It’s less so now, because the pressure has shifted elsewhere, but there’s still strong migratory pressure, handled through the Diocesan Migration Office, based in Nador — next to Melilla — in Tétouan, in Tangier, and a small office in Al Hoceima and in Castillejos, right next to Ceuta.
There’s aid there that we want to make comprehensive, with projects funded by the European Union, dealing with healthcare, psychology, social work, help returning to one’s own country for those who wish it — for those in detention or in an irregular situation, of whom there are quite a few as well. For many years, social pastoral work has focused mainly there, and care for Moroccans has gone largely through Caritas.
Those who have returned don’t need particular help. In fact, their families are waiting on the Moroccan side, and the tragedy is that many are waiting for their children and relatives who don’t show up. So they don’t know if they’re among the dead, among the missing, or if they’ve stayed behind in Ceuta, and for some reason can’t get through by phone.
But they don’t need particular help to return; they go back home, little by little, but they do go home. On the way there, support was needed from the Xaverian community in Fnideq, which was completely overwhelmed [by people passing through], because it was an avalanche impossible to sustain for a small community in a small town, with the minimal resources the Church has.
How is the reality of sub-Saharan migrants crossing through Morocco separate from that of Moroccan migrants?
The sub-Saharans who make it to the diocese have crossed much of the Sahara desert. We’ll never know how many lie buried in the sands of the Sahara. Here [in Morocco] there’s care provided by the Missionaries of Charity for pregnant women, and many of those pregnancies are the result of rape or of sexual encounters in the desert. So it’s a very dramatic reality.
When they get here, their wish is to jump to Europe by whatever means. Morocco is a place of transit; almost nobody wants to stay in Morocco. They’re fleeing hunger, violence, war, drought — real, genuine hardships.
The Moroccan reality is different, as I said before. Morocco is a country in economic expansion, with a lot of foreign investment. It’s a country with possibilities, with resources, where they’re making major investments in infrastructure.
For example, the port of Tangier is a commercial port, one of the best in the Mediterranean, but a similar one is being finished in Nador, next to Melilla, and another in Dakhla, in Western Sahara, to the south. So Morocco is set to capture Mediterranean shipping trade, and a good part of Atlantic trade with Africa too. This means growth even in eye-catching structures: in Casablanca they’re finishing the largest football stadium in the world.
All of which speaks of a country with resources. Now, those resources don’t reach everyone. There’s still a part of the population living with notable hardship. These are the ones who try to jump to Europe, not so much out of hunger, but because the pull of social media is very strong, and so is the sheer number of Moroccan migrants already in Europe who tell them about the opportunities there.
When they come here to visit, they show up with impressive watches — some of them rented — to make it look like things are going well. All of this is a big draw, which leads Moroccans here to think that Europe could be a solution for their lives.
It’s not so much hunger as this strong desire to better their lives, to leave behind a situation with many hardships and head toward a destination that seems much richer and more abundant. But these are two different profiles.
Those who remain in Ceuta right now are mostly sub-Saharan. Many of them are being reviewed for the possibility of a political asylum process, because there are situations that call for it. Whereas a Moroccan will practically never be granted refugee status, because it simply doesn’t apply. There may be individual cases where it could, but in general Morocco’s situation doesn’t meet the criteria for refugee status.
Both during his journey to Spain and in Magnifica humanitas, Pope Leo XIV speaks of the “right to remain in one’s own homeland.” What can the Church also do to promote that reality?
The Church in Morocco is small, with tradition, but it’s small. And in that smallness, we have our projects to help the people here and to show them they can progress here. Within the bishop’s residence, we have a project that’s been running for three years with children living on the street.
There’s a significant group of children living on the streets, with everything that entails — physically, biologically, sexually, in terms of health — hooked from a very young age on sniffing solvents, and then moving on to harder drugs.
We started with street outreach with the children where they were, then a day center, and now there’s a small family home where 11 children live, all enrolled in school, everything set up so these kids can go on into vocational training, and some into higher education — so that in Morocco they have the skills to manage their lives and live with dignity within their own country.
It’s a similar model to what we do with women: we work a great deal with women — Moroccan women too — in a sewing and tailoring training center, which allows them, on one hand, to socialize with each other at the center, and then either set up small sewing workshops or work in the garment manufacturing companies around the port of Tangier, where there’s strong demand for labor. Our sewing schools train on the same machines the companies use, so it’s much easier for them to get hired there.
These are small things, numerically speaking, but very important. Christ would have become incarnate for even a single person. So if we manage to help one child, one woman, one person in difficulty move forward, the effort will have been worth it. We do what we can, without setting spectacular statistical expectations, because that’s not possible, but recognizing every success as something that justifies all our charitable and social work with the Moroccan population.
Do you think the crisis has been politicized, on both sides?
The crisis is political in nature. What happened last week has happened before, depending on relations between the two governments, Spain and Morocco. When there are problems, migrants become a kind of warning signal.
If relations turn bad, as in 2021, the door opens and thousands of migrants are let through. This time it’s much stranger; the motive behind the operation isn’t clear. But whether more or less rigor is applied to containing migration on the Moroccan side always depends on relations between the two countries, although there are many more reasons.
I think this case can’t be simplified — politics plays a part, but you have to examine all the variables, like a giant puzzle.
What should be done going forward, from the Church’s side, in dialogue with the civil authorities of both countries, regarding this kind of situation?
Our dialogue with the Spanish authorities is essentially nil, beyond the Spanish embassy and the consulates, with whom we have a very good relationship.
With the Moroccan authorities there’s an excellent relationship, grounded also in mutual loyalty: we are loyal to Moroccan laws, we try to respect the law, and within that respect we can talk with the government. On the religious side, we have freedom to operate within our own places of worship, and recognition of certain rights.
It’s important to cultivate this religious freedom that allows us to live, and at the same time move among the Moroccan population with normality. That’s a factor worth keeping in mind. Now, we are not political interlocutors, because that’s not our place. We can have our own opinions and our own sensitivities, and we can share those with the Spanish authorities in Morocco, in case they find them useful. But stepping into that arena would delegitimize us religiously.
And the Church, first and foremost, tries to be a presence of Christ, to proclaim Jesus Christ. Here we do that mainly through our works, but also by offering Catholic formation, sustaining and nurturing the faith. But it’s not our place to engage in political discourse. Our role in that sphere is the social one, and we have, I believe, a fairly favorable response and welcome from the Moroccan government.