MADRID, Sept. 10, 2026 — Spain’s intelligence service warned Moroccan counterparts and Spanish authorities about plans for migrants to enter the North African enclave of Ceuta one day before a mass crossing involving more than 70,000 people, according to documents released by the Spanish government.

A July 29 note from Spain’s National Intelligence Centre, or CNI, to Morocco’s intelligence agencies, the DGST and DGED, warned of social media plans encouraging migrants to reach Ceuta by climbing the border fence or swimming around it. The plans were reportedly timed to coincide with Morocco’s national Throne Day celebrations.

The CNI also alerted Spain’s government representative in Ceuta on the same day, according to declassified WhatsApp messages released with the documents.

“There are two different groups with a total of 180,000 followers,” the CNI wrote, highlighting the scale of the online networks involved.

The Moroccan government did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The mass crossing was followed by a prolonged humanitarian and political crisis in Ceuta. Six weeks after the surge, NGOs estimated that around 140 people had died, while more than 10,000 migrants, including unaccompanied minors, remained in the enclave in makeshift camps or on streets and beaches, according to local authorities.

The release of the intelligence documents is expected to increase scrutiny of how Spanish authorities responded in the hours leading up to the border crossing and whether sufficient preventive measures were taken.

However, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said the documents did not indicate that authorities had been warned about the scale of the eventual surge.

“I was not aware of any information of any kind pointing to the magnitude of the avalanche,” Albares told reporters on Wednesday, speaking about the information available to him at the time.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez previously said Spain had found no evidence that Moroccan authorities had orchestrated the deadly border rush. His statement differed from allegations contained in a Spanish police report.

Spain’s Interior Ministry, however, reported that Moroccan border police had been largely passive during the crossing. The ministry said Morocco had been expected to reinforce the border with around 1,000 additional police officers and soldiers, despite the day being a public holiday.

The Spanish government released 40 intelligence reports, alerts and communications covering July 1 through July 31 as part of Sánchez’s commitment to make information surrounding the crisis public.

The documents indicate that tensions had been building for days before the mass crossing. A Spanish Defence Ministry presentation dated July 30 said a migration crisis had been developing in Ceuta since July 25, with approximately 1,700 migrants arriving by sea from Morocco.

The presentation warned that additional incursions were expected in the short term and described the situation along the Moroccan coast near Ceuta as “migratory chaos.”

The European Commission said on Wednesday that it had approved €114.7 million ($133.6 million) in aid for Spain to help manage the situation in the North African enclave.

SOURCE: Reuters, September 10, 2026.