Spain threatens to retaliate after Italy imposes border controls following Ceuta migrant influx

Spain has threatened to retaliate against Italy after Rome imposed border controls ​on Spanish visitors via air and sea following last week's influx of migrants ​into the ⁠North African ⁠enclave of Ceuta.

The Spanish government called Italy's measures "unjust, contrary ‌to EU interests and discriminatory to ‌the population of Spain" and threatened to impose countermeasures.

Around 72,000 people illegally entered Ceuta from Morocco in a 24-hour period, but the vast majority have since returned to Morocco, according to Spanish estimates.

Spain's Youth Minister, Sira Rego, said some migrant minors should be moved from overcrowded reception centres in Ceuta to the ​mainland within weeks.

Madrid said on Friday that none of them were able to enter ⁠freely into Schengen ​under the enclave's migration rules.

The Schengen area agreement allows more than 450m people free travel between member countries without going through border controls, including 25 of the 27 EU member states.

At least 80 migrants died, including some who drowned and others who were killed in a stampede to cross a breakwater barrier, while 11 deaths were reported on the Moroccan side of the border.

Extra police and forensic investigators have been sent to the area to speed up the identification process.

Most of the dead will be buried in Ceuta in the coming days, Spanish officials said.

For ​the vast majority who won't be named before then, staff have taken fingerprints and DNA samples and will keep working to connect the bodies with names, and then with relatives.

Jamal Bahloul, 26, said his 22-year-old ⁠brother Mohamed, a construction worker, left his home in Tangier and was last in contact on 30 July.

"We have heard nothing more. We don't know whether he is in Ceuta or ‌he died," Mr Bahloul said.

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Other relatives are gathering at the Moroccan side of the border to press officials for answers and visit local morgues.

Post-mortem examinations revealed many of the 80 people whose bodies ‌were brought ashore in Spain died from cardiopulmonary arrests - a common feature of drownings, pathologists said.

The crisis has sparked anti-immigration rhetoric across Europe and diplomatic tensions within the European Union over border policy, with Spain accusing some allies of an "unhelpful and polarising" response.

On Friday, Italy temporarily suspended its open-border Schengen agreement with Spain, re-imposing border controls for air and sea - contrary to EU rules that created passport-free travel around the zone.

(c) Sky News 2026: Spain threatens to retaliate after Italy imposes border controls following Ceuta migrant influ