More than 2,500 migrants remain in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta after last month’s mass crossing from Morocco. Danish broadcaster DR has examined the country most of them left behind.
DR reported on Friday that more than 2,500 migrants are still in Ceuta. The Spanish territory in North Africa was reached in late July by large numbers of Moroccans who swam across from the Moroccan side of the border.
According to the OECD, unemployment among Moroccans aged 15 to 24 stood at 37.2 percent in 2025. That means more than one in three young jobseekers could not find work. Youth unemployment in the EU as a whole is around 15 percent, and considerably lower in Denmark.
Morocco is Africa’s fifth largest economy and recently took the title of the continent’s strongest industrial nation, DR notes. Amin Younes Aoussar, a migration researcher at the University of Copenhagen, told the broadcaster that many Moroccans link adulthood and social recognition to having a job. Young people therefore move to the big cities as a stepping stone toward the EU, he said.
DR corresponded on social media with a young man from Kenitra, north of Rabat, and granted him anonymity because of the risk of reprisals from Moroccan authorities. He said a friend died at sea during an earlier attempt to migrate. He still hopes to reach Europe, but says he would only try again through legal channels, even though many EU countries do not want more migrants.
Aoussar said the problem is not new and that protests over it date back to the 1980s. Morocco’s education ministry announced 26 new study programs a few months ago, he told DR. The OECD describes the underlying issue as a skills mismatch, where young people’s qualifications do not match what employers need.
Figures from the World Bank cited by DR show that much of Morocco’s current growth comes from car and aviation production, which requires technically trained workers. The OECD also finds that an adult is more than three times as likely to be employed as a person aged 15 to 24.
Aftermath in Ceuta
Reuters reports that Spain’s interior ministry counted more than 50,000 crossings by land and sea during the surge, with more than 48,000 people returning to Morocco within 48 hours. The official death toll on the Spanish side rose to 72. Ceuta’s regional leader, Juan Jesús Vivas, said reception centers for adults and minors had collapsed because of overcrowding.
Time reports that Spain’s interior ministry linked the surge to a Supreme Court ruling of June 29, 2026. The ruling barred summary returns of migrants who reach Ceuta and Melilla by sea without due process. Al Jazeera reports that news of the decision spread through a social media campaign in Morocco before the crossings began.
