Spain denies ignoring intelligence service warning over Ceuta migration crisis

Madrid said it had never received information about the mass arrival of tens of thousands of migrants in the North African Spanish territory

The government in Madrid has rejected allegations that it ignored warnings from its intelligence service, the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI), about a mass arrival of tens of thousands of migrants in the Spanish territory of Ceuta in North Africa.

It said on Monday that no intelligence reports had been received warning of a migration crisis on this scale.

Meanwhile, efforts to accommodate and repatriate the remaining migrants, as well as the search for further fatalities, are continuing in Ceuta. According to the Ministry of the Interior in Madrid, 72 bodies have been recovered so far.

Miguel Tellado, spokesman for the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP), said it was difficult to imagine that the CNI had known nothing of the impending “human wave”.

However, government spokeswoman Elma Saiz insisted that “no one had anticipated such an unprecedented event”.

Last week tens of thousands had entered Ceuta irregularly from Morocco - most by swimming, others by climbing over the 6-metre-high border fence. The exact figure remains unclear.