At least 6,000 people, including around 1,500 minors, swam from Morocco to the bordering Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Monday in the largest influx of illegal migration there in a single day, Spanish authorities said.
The migrants swam from two locations, with some entering southern Ceuta at Tarajal beach, and a larger group entering the north of the city at Benzu beach, a spokesman for the Spanish government in Ceuta told CNN.
One man drowned in the process, the spokesman added.
At both locations, migrants swam around rocky breakwaters jutting out into the Mediterranean that mark the border between the countries. The spokesman said it was a short distance in each case.
Ceuta is an enclave of some 84,000 Spaniards on Morocco’s north coast and, crucially for migrants attempting to enter, it is on European Union soil.
“I have never seen a situation like this one, it is unprecedented, I have never felt so frustrated and sad,” Ceuta President Juan Jesus Vivas, told Spanish broadcaster TVE on Tuesday.
