Eighteen migrants died during a mass attempt to cross the Ceuta border

The toll is heavy. Eighteen dead, tens of thousands of crossings: the Spanish Interior Ministry confirmed that nearly 50,000 migrants had crossed the border separating Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in the last twenty-four hours, an influx of exceptional magnitude.

Among the crowd, eighteen people did not survive the attempted crossing. The exact circumstances of these deaths have not been specified by the Spanish authorities.

Ceuta, a Spanish territory enclaved on the northern coast of Morocco, constitutes one of only two land borders between Africa and the European Union, along with Melilla. For years it has been a popular crossing point for migrants seeking to reach Europe.