'We mourn lives lost': Death toll from Ceuta migrant catastrophe exceeds 140, with mostly young Moroccan victims

The death toll from the migrant crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta last week has soared to 141, the highest seen in recent history concerning migrant incidents in Morocco.

63 bodies have now been recovered in Moroccan waters, a grim number added to an already-significant tally of 78 bodies which were found in Spanish waters earlier this week.

The latest death toll was annnouced after the NGO Caminando Fronteras carried out a monitoring of hospital morgues across northern Morocco. Bodies recovered on the Moroccan side are being held in morgues at four hospitals in Tetouan, Tangier, Fnideq, and M’Diq, all in the north of the country.

Accem, a Spanish NGO which supports migrants, told The New Arab : "We mourn the lives lost due to this crisis; in circumstances like this, the primary victims are the most vulnerable—in this case, people seeking a better future."

Spokesperson Pedro de Santiago said the tragedy highlights the need for safe and legal pathways to prevent such incidents and migration-related emergencies.

"We reiterate that the fundamental rights and personal integrity of migrants must be at the heart of every decision," he said.

On the Spanish side, authorities for the first time have classified the deaths under the same "multiple victims" protocol used for mass-casualty disasters such as train or plane crashes.

Sources have told Spanish media the majority of the deceased are young Moroccan men aged between 20 and 30, though the group also includes some sub-Saharan Africans, a small number of women, and some minors.

The Caminando Fronteras NGO stressed the importance of expediting the identification of victims: "There are many families desperately searching for their loved ones."

Last week, around 80,000 migrants, mostly from Morocco, attempted to cross into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta, and to a lesser extent, Melilla, which border Moroccan territory, in one of the most high-profile attempts at migration in recent years.

The vast majority entered Ceuta after swimming around the El Tarajal and Benzu breakwaters before crossing onto dry land. The unprecedented number of migrants arriving triggered chaos in the city. It prompted its president, Juan Jesus Visas, to demand that Madrid declare a state of national emergency. Migrant reception centres also reported being overwhelmed.

The chaos at the Morocco-Spain border was followed by a wave of criticism from the EU, with some countries calling for Spain to be suspended from the visa-free Schengen Area, as well as criticising Madrid's "lax" migration policies, which some analysts say were a major "pull factor" in the migration attempt.

Last June, the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that migrants arriving by sea would not automatically be subject to the same immediate pushbacks as those arriving by land.

Factors such as disinformation on social media over the status of the border between Morocco and Ceuta, calls on social media to migrate to Spain, and growing poverty rates, corruption, and unemployment among Morocco’s youth were named as among the pull and push factors for the migration attempt.

Migration to Europe is also a phenomenon engrained within Moroccan society, especially among the country's youth, and themes relating to such can be found in films, television series, and music.

Other analysts suggested geopolitical tensions, triggered by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's recent diplomatic visit to Algeria, as a potential factor in the allegedly passive behaviour showcased by Moroccan police officers as migrants made their way to Spain and breached the border.

This was also identified as one of the reasons behind the 2022 Melilla border incident, which killed 23 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa.

Accem warned that against the potential use of migration flows as "a tool for leverage".

"Situations like those in Ceuta— and Melilla— stem from complex causes that cannot be resolved with simple answers; they require multifaceted, structural, and long-term solutions," de Santiago told TNA.

Almost 70,000 migrants have now voluntarily returned from the enclave to Morocco, with the thousands remaining mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa.