The death toll from the Ceuta crossings rose again over the weekend. Al Jazeera's report dated Saturday put it at "at least 67," with Spanish officials saying there could be additional casualties on the Moroccan side of the border [1]. Al Jazeera's report dated Sunday put it at "at least 72 people died during crossing attempts" [2]. We print both with their dates rather than settling on one number: 67 as of Saturday, 72 as of Sunday, from the same outlet, with officials on both sides of the border indicating the count is not final.
Spain's interior ministry says between 50,000 and 60,000 people crossed between Wednesday and Friday, and that 48,300 had returned by 6 p.m. GMT on Friday [1]. By Saturday, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said "almost all" had departed and described conditions as back to normal [1]. In the city itself on Sunday, Euronews found the border area much calmer than in recent days [4].
The emergency meeting that 22 member states demanded now has a date. Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, whose government holds the rotating EU presidency, said: "As Presidency holders, Ireland will convene a meeting on Tuesday of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council... to discuss developments in Ceuta" [2]. The letter that produced it was initiated by Italy and Denmark, addressed to Ursula von der Leyen, António Costa and Martin, and demanded "an extraordinary videoconference of the Ministers of the Interior" as a "matter of urgency" [3].
Three of the states that did not sign it are named in the reporting: France, Portugal and Luxembourg [3]. The arithmetic leaves a gap worth stating plainly. Twenty-two signatures out of 27 member states means five governments did not sign, and the fetched reporting names three of them. We are not filling in the other two.
What the three named non-signatories did instead is the part that matters for Tuesday. France, which did not sign the letter calling for a collective response, announced a five-fold increase in police at its border with Spain [3]. Portugal, which also did not sign, boosted maritime and land surveillance [3]. Italy, which initiated the letter, suspended Schengen with Spain, a measure whose practical effect is unclear given that the two countries share no land border [3]. A council of interior ministers convening on Tuesday will be looking at a set of unilateral border measures already in place before it sits.
The politics inside Spain moved the same day. Vox leader Santiago Abascal visited Ceuta on Sunday and accused the government of being "in thrall to Morocco" [4]. A taxi driver told Euronews: "I got the feeling that people are very, very angry... There are 85,000 of us here, and 60,000 are coming in" [4]. His arithmetic describes the week's crossings rather than Sunday's position; by the interior ministry's own account, the overwhelming majority of those people had already returned [1][4]. The gap between what a resident of a city of 85,000 experienced last week and what the ministry can show on a spreadsheet is itself the political problem, and it is the one Abascal spent Sunday working.
The 500-metre floating containment barrier at the Tarajal breakwater was completed on Saturday, with Civil Guard officers beginning work early that morning [1]. No Sunday assessment of whether it is holding appeared in the reporting fetched for this piece.
What Tuesday convenes is the enforcement side of the EU's migration machinery, interior ministers rather than heads of government or foreign ministers. The number it convenes over rose by five between Saturday and Sunday, and Spanish officials have said it may rise again once the Moroccan side of the border is accounted for [1][2].
