Ceuta Crisis: Thousands Stranded After Mass Crossing (Video)
Last update: August 13, 2026
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Migrants are building shelters from sticks and cardboard on Benitez beach as reception centres overflow.
Migrants stranded in Spain's Ceuta are camping on the beach after more than 70000 people crossed from Morocco in late July, cbinews. tvtv reports.
Footage from Tuesday, August 11 shows shelters made of sticks, leaves and cardboard at Benitez beach with people cooking and resting in scorching heat.
Moroccan migrant Nizar Yousef said shops shut and security forces chased them, so the beach near the city centre felt safer than the mountains.
"Most Moroccans here set up tents for one simple reason: this location is close to the city centre. Because when we were in the mountains, the army would come after us and send drones to attack us, and the army would strike us, so everyone would flee".
Sudanese migrant Mastour, there for 12 days, said food comes once a day around five or six, and exhaustion is setting in.
“We were in Morocco, and from Morocco we started our journey. We were trying to get to Ceuta, and eventually we entered Ceuta. While we were in Morocco, it was suffering, really suffering. And after we entered Ceuta, as you can see, we arrived in this condition. We have been here for approximately 12 days, and still nothing is clear. The organisation brings us something to eat only once a day, around five or six o’clock. And now we are here exhausted, because of the sun and the heat. As you can see, everyone here is in the same situation - the Moroccan boys and the Sudanese. Everyone is in the same condition.”
Aid chief Jose Miguel Morales said some children sleeping on streets have been beaten.
More than 1300 migrant children are now registered, overwhelming centres built for far fewer.
Spain says about 70000 of 72000 who entered have returned to Morocco, but Ceuta leader Juan Jesus Vivas says 8000 to 11000 remain. At least 57 people died in the crossing.
Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Morocco's coast held since 1580 and one of two EU land borders in Africa, saw about 8000 crosses in 2021. The July 2026 surge is the largest on record and has turned a border crisis into a child protection emergency.
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