Morocco arrests 152 people for reportedly encouraging people to come to Ceuta illegally

A government spokesperson said that 152 people were caught in Morocco and will now go to trial on charges that they used social media to try to get a lot of people to illegally cross into the nearby Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

Recently, tens of thousands of mostly young Moroccan men rushed to the border city of Fnideq in the north to try to cross. Human rights campaigners in the city say that their efforts were thwarted by the highest level of security ever seen there.

At a news gathering late Thursday night, spokesman Mustapha Baitas said, “All attempts have been foiled.”

“About 3,000 people tried to cross illegally,” he said in his first public statement days after the crossing.

Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish colonies on the coast of Morocco in the Mediterranean, share the only land links between the EU and Africa. There are times when large groups of people trying to get to Europe try to cross.

Since Madrid supported Morocco’s plan for Western Sahara, which is contested, to become its own country in 2022, the two countries have worked together more closely to stop illegal immigration.

News outlets in the area shared videos of young people throwing rocks at police as they tried to get closer to the Ceuta border.

“No deaths have been reported,” Baitas said, adding that the police followed the law.

Interior ministry numbers show that in the first eight months of this year, Morocco stopped 45,015 people from crossing into Europe illegally.

Police in Spain say that last month, hundreds of migrants used the thick fog to swim to Ceuta.

More and more people are trying the riskier and longer Atlantic way to the Canary Islands because Morocco’s northern borders are being watched more closely.