Spanish prosecutors have raised the number of reported sexual assaults in Ceuta since the mass invasion from Morocco at the end of July to 23, including five ‘rapes involving penetration’.
Nine victims are minors aged 14 to 17, while all but one of the victims are female. Eight suspected perpetrators have been identified: four Moroccans, three Spaniards and one Belgian. Prosecutors have not published a new total number of individual victims alongside the 23 cases.
The figures came as two further Moroccan men were reportedly arrested in separate rape cases on Monday, 31 August. Policía Nacional detained a man aged roughly 20–30 in Plaza Nicaragua after midnight over the reported sexual assault of a young Spanish woman from Ceuta. He remained in custody while officers investigated. In Almadraba, Guardia Civil arrested another Moroccan man over a sexual assault, this time against a Moroccan woman; both had arrived during the mass invasion.
The latest figure represents a significant increase from the last confirmed data on sexual assault and rape cases during the month-long crisis, which stood at 16 last week, with the youngest victim a girl no more than 10 years old. The real number of potential incidents could be much higher, considering the overload facing authorities responsible for identifying, tracking and administering such cases, while many incidents may never reach the authorities at all.
Despite Pedro Sánchez’s government claiming at the beginning of August that the crisis was under control and effectively declaring it resolved after only a few days, developments over the past week and on Monday show the situation escalating at an accelerating pace.
On Monday, hundreds of illegal migrants tried to force their way into an expanded reception facility at Loma Colmenar, prompting riot police to charge the crowd and fire warning shots. The scenes reflected how the crisis is now reaching every arm of the Spanish enclave’s local administration. Police are increasingly losing control of clashes between illegal migrants and local residents, while emergency workers are themselves coming under attack; hospitals, prisons and reception centres are operating at thousands of per cent over capacity.
And as September begins, schools are preparing to reopen and launch the new school year under these circumstances. That has prompted another conflict between the Sánchez government and the local administration. Madrid insists classes will begin on 8 September and says schools will receive 24-hour security coverage. Ceuta education councillor Pilar Orozco has demanded concrete staffing and deployment details, reflecting parents’ anxiety over returning their children to classrooms while thousands of illegal migrants remain in the enclave.
How to protect children from the devastating impacts of the crisis has already prompted conflict within the government itself. Youth and Childhood Minister Sira Rego demanded the transfer to the peninsula of the 1,478 migrant minors identified in the enclave, with 500 ‘particularly vulnerable girls’ to be moved urgently, calling it ‘essential’. Sánchez, by contrast, argued that administrative files should first be resolved in Ceuta before any discussion of transfers to the mainland.
Madrid has meanwhile shifted the political focus outward, potentially diverting blame from the government’s own grave mismanagement of the crisis towards familiar scapegoats. Sánchez on Monday blamed Russian and Israeli disinformation networks for helping fuel the July invasion while explicitly clearing Morocco of responsibility. Russia and Israel rejected the accusation.
Sánchez’s defence of Rabat, nevertheless, sits uneasily with Spanish intelligence reporting that Morocco allowed the border storm to happen and later exploited it politically, securing multimillion-euro financial support for border protection. Spain has also asked Frontex for help identifying, processing and returning illegal migrants.
Inside Ceuta, the resistance is hardening day by day, and it is not confined to ordinary residents. Hundreds of firefighters, national and local police officers, Guardia Civil personnel, healthcare workers, prison staff, teachers and other front-line employees rallied in Plaza de los Reyes on Monday demanding ‘means, resources and solutions’, as well as the ‘immediate expulsion’ of the ‘invaders’.
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