The waters of Ceuta’s El Trampolín beach present unsafe levels of fecal contamination, posing a serious sanitary risk for the embattled and invaded city, local outlets warned on Friday morning.
The Spanish exclave has now marked two months since tens of thousands of migrants invaded its territory. Since then, a large amount of the remaining invading migrants settled in the Trampolín beach, turning the once pristine shores into a makeshift shanty town full of tents, dumping trash all over the coastline, and “relieving” and bathing themselves in the beach’s waters.
Several Ceuta-based outlets informed on Friday that they obtained a copy of a new report from the city’s local health authorities warning of the presence of “highly elevated” amounts of fecal bacteria in the invaded beach’s waters.
Around 3,000 migrants remain in makeshift settlements on Ceuta’s beaches following the mass illegal influx recorded at the end of July. They live in shacks built from reeds, plastic sheeting, cardboard and sheets on El Trampolin beach. (Marcos Moreno/Europa Press via Getty Images)
Illegal migrants at the settlement on El Trampolin beach, on 30 September, 2026 in Ceuta, Spain. Hundreds of migrants continue to live on El Trampolin beach following the postponement of the eviction from the settlement. (Marcos Moreno/Europa Press via Getty Images)
El Faro de Ceuta detailed that report’s findings are based on three rounds of microbiological analyses of the Trampolín’s waters conducted between September 23-28.
All of the tests found dangerous concentrations of Intestinal Enterococci and Escherichia Coli far beyond the safety level thresholds outlined in Spain’s existing water quality regulation guidelines.
Per El Faro, the Ceuta Health Council stressed that although Trampolín is not a formal bathing zone, frequent or prolonged exposure to its waters in its current state represents a potential sanitary risk linked to direct contact with contaminated water.
Unnamed Ceuta government sources affirmed to El Faro and other local outlets that the report and its findings have already been forwarded to the Spanish central government’s Health and Migration Ministries.
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El Periodico de Ceuta, a local newspaper, pointed out that the deterioration of the beach’s waters drastically occurred in a manner of “weeks.” The newspaper noted that prior testing conducted in August showed that the waters remained in “good” quality despite the beach having been occupied by the invading migrants — but, by early September, the quality classification was downgraded to “enough,” leading to the much worse and concerning contamination levels documented across the late September tests.
Ceuta’s health authorities reportedly called for urgent and immediate measures to stop the sanitary risks posed by the contamination of the beach’s waters — which can affect the city’s residents and invading migrants alike.
The systematic deterioration of the beach has become one of the most glaring consequences of the ongoing migrant invasion of Ceuta in the past eight weeks, as repeated efforts to clear the migrant camp and clean the area has so far been unsuccessful. The remaining invading migrants have turned Trampolín and its surrounding areas into what is now being locally described as the zone with the “highest level of criminal activity in all of Ceuta.”