Ceuta (Spain) (AFP) - Madrid said on Thursday it would despatch soldiers to Ceuta to ensure security after hundreds of migrants entered Spain’s north African exclave from neighbouring Morocco and hundreds more headed there.

The Spanish government’s delegation in the enclave told AFP that the bodies of nine migrants who died while trying to reach Ceuta by swimming had been recovered.

Migration from Morocco into Spain’s two north African territories, Ceuta and Melilla, has long been a politically sensitive issue between the two countries, as thousands cross the border at times.

Italy called on Thursday for Spain to be suspended from Europe’s open-borders Schengen zone, prompting a backlash from Spain, which summoned the Italian envoy to Madrid.

AFP reporters saw a stream of adults and children, most of them soaked, entering the town of Ceuta after having swum there. Discarded flotation rings and clothes were discarded on the shore near where the border barrier meets the sea.

“The armed forces will reinforce the Civil Guard in the exercise of its powers and any others that may be necessary to maintain security in the city of Ceuta,” Spain’s interior ministry said.

It did not specify how many soldiers would be sent to the small territory of 18.5 square kilometres (seven square miles) but said the Civil Guard’s strength there would be nearly doubled from the current level of 80.

It will also send diving teams and coastguard ships.

- Spain ‘profoundly wrong’ -

Italy said on Thursday Spain should be suspended from the Schengen zone – a system of open borders spanning 29 European countries that have officially abolished controls at their common borders.

“I am in favour of closing the Schengen area with Spain,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani wrote on X.

“Irregular and uncontrolled immigration poses a danger to national security,” he claimed.

“The images coming from Ceuta show how the Madrid government’s decision to grant Spanish, and therefore European, citizenship to over 500,000 irregular immigrants is profoundly wrong and encourages human trafficking,” he argued.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Luis Albares responded by accusing Tajani of weaponising immigration for political ends;

He said such remarks were “improper” for “a partner and friendly country from which we expect European solidarity and not partisan demagoguery”.

The Spanish leader of Ceuta, Juan Vivas, said on Wednesday that 1,500 migrants had come to the enclave by sea in the past few days.

“There is no more room for anyone,” he told Spanish television.

On the Moroccan side of the border, an AFP reporter saw hundreds of people including children gathered on Thursday evening near the border between Ceuta and the local town of Fnideq, waiting to cross into the Spanish territory.

Several people on the road told AFP they wanted to reach Ceuta, including a young man with a backpack from Tangier who said he had heard “the border had been opened”.

- Gathering in Morocco -

Migrants walked through the streets of Ceuta, thanking the Spanish police and calling out: “Bye bye, Morocco, hello Spain.”

Police and Civil Guards in Ceuta appeared to do little to intervene, although some officers attempted to direct the arrivals to the local migrant reception centre.

“It really breaks my heart to see so many people suffering, and who knows how many have actually drowned along the way,” one young man, a local resident, told AFP.

“When they arrive, they’re faced with the harsh reality that they have nothing and that people treat them as if they were nobody.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on X that his government was “focussed on providing an immediate response to the crisis in Ceuta”.

“We are mobilising all necessary resources, working with Moroccan and international authorities, and preparing the necessary measures to restore normality as soon as possible.”

Sanchez spoke to Vivas, who described “with complete clarity and starkness the seriousness of the situation”, Ceuta’s regional government said in a statement.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska was to travel to Ceuta on Friday “to monitor the situation”, said a ministry statement.

Sanchez’s right-wing political rivals immediately pressured him on Thursday over the migrant arrivals.

“The government cannot look the other way regarding its duties because we are facing a national security crisis,” alleged opposition Popular Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo on X.

Far-right Vox party leader Santiago Abascal blamed Sanchez personally for the migrant influx into Ceuta.

Ceuta and Melilla have Europe’s only two land borders with Africa.

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