Criminals previously banished from Spain on jihadism charges were detected among the massive swam of illegal migrants that invaded Ceuta last week, unnamed Spanish law enforcement sources disclosed on Tuesday.
Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, was overrun last week by tens of thousands of illegal migrants who swarmed their way into the city seeking to reach European Union territory. It is estimated that upwards of 60,000 illegal migrants flooded Ceuta during last week’s events — nearly doubling the city’s some 80,000 population in the span of hours.
The city’s autonomous government claimed that “between 3,000 and 5,000” illegal migrants remain in Ceuta as of Monday. Per the Spanish public broadcaster RTVE, Ceuta’s President Juan Jesus Vivas acknowledged that the city is yet to regain a full semblance of normalcy following last week’s chaotic events.
Adding to the already dramatic situation, the Spanish outlet El Español reports that agents from Spain’s National Police’s General Information Commissariat (CGI) and the Civil Guard’s Information Headquarters (JIGC) have so far detected that “at least ten” individuals among the massive illegal migrant invasion swarm are individuals who were previously detained, convicted, and banished from Spain to Morocco on jihadism charges. Both CGI and JIGC reportedly specialize in counter-terrorism security actions.
The revelation is the result of a recently launched investigation by both police units that includes an analysis of the surveillance footage obtained during last week’s invasion. The potentially dangerous migrants were reportedly identified “almost as soon as the investigations got underway.” Last week’s chaotic invasion of Ceuta allowed the once-banished and convicted migrants a way back into Spanish national territory and.
According to El Español, the detected persons could still be among the thousands of illegal migrants who are still present in Ceuta. Unnamed sources reportedly affirmed that the vast amount of information is still being analyzed. Most worrisome, the sources stated they believe “highly likely that the number of identified criminals linked to jihadism will increase.”
El Español noted that last week’s events are not the first time that individuals linked to jihadism have been detected seeking entry into Spain through migration flows. The outlet, citing data from the Spanish Interior Ministry published in 2022, detailed that at least 15 of the Islamist terrorist arrested by Spanish authorities over the past years used human trafficking networks to slip into Spanish territory.
Alarmingly, the outlet pointed out that the amount of jihadism-linked detentions in Spain has increased over the past years and is now at its highest since the events of the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings — a terrorist attack that left 193 dead and over 2,500 injured.
Last week’s migrant invasion of Ceuta is now described as the single largest migrant crossing in E.U. history. European Union leaders are expected address the dramatic situation through a Tuesday video conference meeting.
The potentially dangerous consequences that the invasion of Ceuta can have for the rest of the European Union prompted numerous European leaders and politicians to join Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s calls to expel Spain from the European Union’s Schengen open borders agreement.
Some of the European politicians, such as Dutch Party for Freedom leader and Breitbart News contributor Geert Wilders went further ahead and called for the Netherlands to close all of its borders in response to the national security threat posed by the invasion of Spanish territory.