Eighty-eight bodies. That is what the morgue in Ceuta counted. Madrid says seventy-two. Rabat says eleven. The same event, the same week, the same sea - three numbers that differ eightfold.

Ceuta is a Spanish city on the African coast, a piece of Europe fenced in by Morocco. Last week around 60,000 people crossed that border. Not through a checkpoint - through the water. Swimming. Most returned to Morocco within 48 hours, the Spanish government said. The head of the regional authority in Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, says that does not amount to normalisation and that "thousands" of people remain in the enclave.

Bodies are still being recovered from the sea. The morgue in Ceuta is overwhelmed. Not all bodies have been found.

Who counts the dead, and why the numbers do not match

This is not a technical inaccuracy. Morocco's interior ministry says eleven people died - ten drowned, one fell from a rock. The Spanish government delegate in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, cited the figure 72. The local authority in Ceuta, the one receiving the bodies, speaks of 88.

The gap between eleven and eighty-eight is not a statistical error. It is a political decision about how many people are permitted to be dead. Each of the three figures serves someone: the smaller the number, the smaller the responsibility of the side the people entered the water from.

Italy suspends Schengen with Spain

Europe's reaction came fast, but it is not the one you would expect. Italy imposed a one-month suspension of the Schengen agreement with Spain. An internal border inside the Union, closed against another member state. Twenty-two countries requested an emergency meeting and signed a joint letter on preventing "further uncontrolled crossings". By video link, on Tuesday.

So: 88 bodies on the shore, and the first concrete move is Rome closing its border to Madrid. Not help for Ceuta - a fence against Ceuta.

Why Morocco opened the door

Spain officially blames criminal gangs - for allegedly spreading false information about a Supreme Court ruling that pushed people to set out. Analysts see something else: Morocco may have deliberately loosened its controls to pressure Madrid over Spain's improved relations with Algeria.

If that is true, then 60,000 people were used as leverage in a dispute between two states. And that is not a new technique. The border as a lever, opened and closed according to the politics of the day - the Balkans know this scene. Whoever controls who crosses also controls what they get for it.

The difference is that for 88 people, how the talks end no longer makes any difference at all.