49,000 migrants invade Spanish enclave in 24 hours

It is also the case that NGOs and Unicef Spain have reported 10-12 year olds asking for phones so they can call home.

Greyfur was emphasising the Unicef is a reputable organisation. She asked a question why a poster has a problem with what Unicef is reporting. .

I didn't feel the greyfur's post was rude myself.

I did LemonJam. Accusing somebody of bragging is unacceptable to me.

The Rest is politics did an excellent podcast on this called "who really benefits from the Ceuta migration crisis" which I thoroughly recommend. The contribution by Gerald Knaus was thought provoking and he made some suggestions about what we should be doing to prevent people risking their lives like this whilst still being a humane society which respects international law. There's far too much in this podcast to mention here but 50-60k people don't suddenly turn up and jump in the sea, not a single person has made it from Morocco, to Ceuta to Spain and most of them have now returned to Morocco apart from nearly 100 people who have died (they are still finding bodies). It's of note that Russia, Trump, Meloni and that vile Musk etc were quick to comment on this "invasion". It smacks of politicians using people to promote their agenda.

I agree foxie48. There is a reason something circulated on social media that prompted this large 70,000 number of adults and children to make the crossing at the same time on the same day.

There is a reason why these individuals left Morocco as they did as a result.

There is a reason why photo images of the incursion were specifically to appear in the media. A reason why no images of 862 plus unaccompanied children, some as young as 10 or 12 years old were not selected to appear in the media

There is a political reason why Russia, Trump, Meloni and Musk responded as they did. There is a reason why the word invasion is emphasised.

There is a political reason why Farage chose to announce Operation Fortress on Monday, directly after this incursion.

Has anyone worked out/discovered why so many people just happened to make this journey at the same time?

It's not the first time this has happened and in the past it's been a signal from the Moroccan government to the Spanish government that they are not happy about something. Basically, Morocco uses migration as a political weapon to threaten Spain despite Morocco getting lots of EU money to keep their borders secure! See Below

"2021 border incident
Main article: 2021 Morocco-Spain border incident

The main precedent for the 2026 crisis was the May 2021 border incident, during which around 8,000 people entered Ceuta from over the border within two days, most by swimming around the breakwaters, and among whom were numerous unaccompanied minors.[29] That episode followed a diplomatic crisis triggered by Spain's hospitalisation of Brahim Ghali, secretary-general of the Polisario Front, who was treated at the Hospital San Pedro in Logroño due to a case of COVID-19, for which Spain had not issued a prior notice to Morocco.[30][31] The initially limited response of Moroccan security forces was widely interpreted in Spain as a form of diplomatic pressure.[13] It exposed the limits of Ceuta's reception capacity and Spain's dependence on Moroccan border cooperation.[29]
2022 Melilla incident
Main article: 2022 Melilla incident

On 24 June 2022, around 2,000 migrants and asylum seekers gathered in the early hours of the day to cross the Melilla border fence:[32][33] 23 migrants and asylum seekers were killed after a crowd crush during a conflict with Moroccan and Spanish security forces.[34]"

Thanks foxie for the recent background , about which I’d been unaware.

Maremia

Has anyone worked out/discovered why so many people just happened to make this journey at the same time?

Social media I heard on one program.
I like to know who counted all these people, especially if they are still finding bodies 😞

MT62 the number of people arriving in Ceuta will, of course, be an estimate but they will have returned to Morocco via land so counting would have been much easier. Dead bodies are easy to count sadly.
There is a Spanish garrison there with about 50K troops of various kinds. Although, migrants do swim to Ceuta there is no right of access to Spain from Ceuta despite it being part of the Schengen area so they just get sent back. These poor people who risked their lives were on a fools mission and were being used for political purposes. The questions we should be asking are who benefited not who counted.