The thousands of people who attempted to enter Ceuta during July’s migration crisis were not driven by poverty alone. Social media, shifting aspirations and an intense online campaign involving accounts from outside Morocco also played a role, according to Amina Bouayach, president of Morocco’s National Human Rights Council (CNDH).
In an interview with Le360, Bouayach offered a broader assessment of a crisis that has put migration, human rights and relations across the Strait of Gibraltar under renewed scrutiny.
Her account draws on an investigation conducted by the CNDH, including interviews with Moroccan and foreign migrants who returned from Ceuta. The council also examined the digital activity surrounding the crossings and documented the physical condition of some of those who returned.
For Bouayach, one of the central conclusions is that conventional explanations of irregular migration do not tell the whole story.
“The journey of Moroccans and foreigners who crossed cannot, in the case of the Moroccans we spoke to and sat down with, be linked only to poverty and vulnerability,” she said.
Those interviewed by the council had different personal aspirations, she said, some of them shaped by “a world they experience in the digital space” and by images of lives that appear radically different from their own.
That finding, she argues, means the response to the crisis cannot be limited to improving incomes and economic conditions. Cultural, social and individual factors also need to be examined, particularly the growing influence of digital platforms on perceptions of migration and life abroad.
A migration crisis fueled online
According to the CNDH president, the council’s investigation identified both Moroccan and foreign social media accounts participating in the online mobilization surrounding the crossings.
“There were Moroccan accounts, as well as many foreign accounts linked to the neighboring country, that were part of this mobilization for the crossings,” she said.
The CNDH’s findings point to accounts linked to Algeria among the foreign actors involved in the online activity.
Some accounts were shut down on the night of July 31, she said. Other accounts remained active afterward and were predominantly foreign.
Bouayach said these accounts were producing between 500 and 1,400 posts a day about the events in Ceuta.
That issue has remained relevant beyond the July events. Ahead of Aug. 15, anonymous social media accounts circulated new calls for collective attempts to enter Ceuta, prompting Moroccan authorities to mount an extensive preventive security operation around Fnideq, the Moroccan city bordering the enclave.
Security forces established checkpoints, restricted access to areas leading toward the border and combed surrounding forests. Royal Gendarmerie helicopters provided aerial surveillance as units on the ground searched areas around Fnideq and Belyounech.
Hundreds of would-be migrants were detained during the operations, while Moroccan authorities said no collective crossing into Ceuta took place on Aug. 15. Security services had also arrested 61 people suspected of promoting or inciting irregular migration on social media in the days leading up to the attempted mobilization.
Testimonies of beatings on the Spanish side
The council collected testimony from both Moroccans and foreign nationals who subsequently returned to Morocco.
“We have testimonies from citizens and foreigners who returned from Ceuta and who were in an irregular situation and told us that they had been subjected to beatings and violence by the Spanish security forces,” Bouayach said.
The CNDH did not rely solely on those accounts, according to its president.
“We also observed signs of beatings and injuries and that they were in poor health, particularly since we have people who were admitted to hospitals in Fnideq and Tangier,” she said.
The CNDH findings add to mounting scrutiny from Moroccan human rights organizations over the treatment of migrants during the crisis.
The Moroccan Organization for Human Rights (OMDH) has separately presented a report documenting beatings, deliberate deprivation of food and water and discriminatory treatment of unidentified bodies in Ceuta and Melilla.
The OMDH has called on Spain to open an independent investigation and make its findings public. Its president, Nawfal Bouamri, told Le360 that the organization was prepared to take the case before international institutions.
Bouayach herself has already taken the issue across the border institutionally. She previously said she had written to Spain’s Defensor del Pueblo, the national ombudsman responsible for protecting fundamental rights, seeking an investigation into violations involving Moroccan migrants in Ceuta.
Read also : Rights violations in Ceuta: Morocco’s CNDH calls on Spanish Ombudsman to investigate
Questions over access to food and water
The CNDH identified another potential human rights issue in the decision to close businesses in Ceuta during the crisis.
Bouayach said local authorities ordered cafés, shops and restaurants to remain closed for two days, leaving many of those who had entered the enclave unable to obtain food or water.
For the council, the consequences of that decision raise questions about whether basic rights were adequately protected regardless of the migrants’ legal status.
This echoes concerns raised by the OMDH, whose report called for an investigation into accounts that commercial establishments were closed in a coordinated manner, effectively preventing migrants from obtaining basic supplies.
Bouayach said the CNDH intends to continue examining the crisis as more information emerges and as the events draw attention internationally. The council plans to organize hearings on the issue once additional evidence has been gathered.
