The official version goes: smuggling networks spread false rumours about asylum and tens of thousands of people set off for Ceuta. That formulation explains nothing. Because Morocco has demonstrated for years that when it wants to, it holds that border. The question is not how people crossed. The question is why nobody stopped them that day.

The crisis erupted ten days after Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez travelled to Algeria - Morocco's principal regional rival. During the visit, Madrid and Algiers announced strengthened diplomatic ties, and Algeria was positioned as Spain's leading supplier of natural gas. Ten days later, the border at Ceuta opens.

This has happened before

In May 2021, around 8,000 people entered Ceuta in two days, swimming and climbing the barriers, while Moroccan forces largely stood aside. Spain's defence minister Margarita Robles openly accused Rabat at the time of using migration as - her word - blackmail.

The cause was Western Sahara. Spain had secretly allowed Brahim Ghali, the Polisario leader fighting for Saharan independence, to receive treatment in a Spanish hospital. Morocco, which regards Western Sahara as its own territory, responded by loosening border control. Relations only recovered in 2022, when Madrid backed Morocco's autonomy proposal for the territory.

That is the whole mechanism, documented, with dates attached. When Madrid takes a step Rabat dislikes, Ceuta becomes a message.

Analysts are not convinced by the coincidence

Riccardo Fabiani of the International Crisis Group believes Morocco may be punishing Spain over its new rapprochement with Algeria, which supports Polisario and Saharan self-determination. Nobody has proof. Everybody has the precedent.

The story has an Israeli dimension too. Morocco normalised relations with Israel in 2020 through American mediation and in return received recognition of its claims over the Sahara. Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon criticised Spain for holding on to the African enclaves, to which Spain's transport minister Óscar Puente responded sharply. Saharan activist Soumara Tesh Sidi points to exactly this knot - Spain and Algeria, Israel and Palestine, Morocco and Washington, all in the same sentence.

Why this is not a distant story

The Balkans know this game from both sides. The border as a bargaining instrument is not a north African invention - it is a tool used by anyone holding territory somebody else wants to cross. The only difference is who holds the handle and what they want in return.

Did Morocco open the border deliberately? There is no public confirmation and there probably never will be. But when a state spends years proving it can seal a border, and then that border gives way exactly ten days after the move that irritates it most - then demanding proof becomes politeness, not scepticism.