Ceuta migrant crisis threatens Sanchez, analysts say

Spain's Ceuta migrant crisis is putting sustained pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez before next year's general election, analysts told AFP, six weeks after more than 70,000 migrants entered the Spanish North African territory from Morocco.

The July 30-31 influx left scores dead, and thousands of people remain in the small city. The crisis has dominated political debate and increased tensions with local residents demanding expulsions and a return to normality.

Jaime Ferri Dura, a political science professor at Madrid's Complutense University, said a crisis of this kind could not be solved quickly and was eroding the government. Anton Losada, a politics professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, said Sanchez's government had taken too long to mobilise emergency resources.

Two unresolved questions remain politically damaging: what the government knew before the surge and what role Morocco played. Spain declassified 40 intelligence documents this week. The government said they supported its position that no one had warned of the scale of the incident, while conservative and far-right opponents said the papers showed warnings were received and not acted on.

A July 29 National Intelligence Centre report flagged calls on Facebook groups to enter Ceuta, including one group with more than 160,000 members. A CNI source said the agency did not foresee the scale and nature of what happened.

Sanchez has said there is no solid proof that the rush was planned by Morocco. Morocco's government said Thursday there were no facts or reports proving its involvement and rejected being made a scapegoat for political score-settling in Spain.

Spanish suspicion remains high. A poll published in El Mundo said 90 percent of Spaniards believed Rabat was behind the events. Spain's top criminal court has opened an investigation into the mass entry, pointing to what it called an undeniable facilitation in Morocco and to a Spanish police report alleging total permissiveness by Moroccan security forces.

The crisis appears to be helping the far-right Vox party, which has denounced an invasion of Ceuta orchestrated by Morocco. A survey published in El Pais found 63 percent of respondents believed Sanchez had handled the crisis badly or very badly, and that Vox was seen as the party most capable of handling immigration.

Losada said the crisis would do significant damage if it continued to drag on, but could become just another issue if the government found a more or less satisfactory solution. Ferri Dura said Sanchez could still draw on Spain's strong economic performance.