EU grapples with migrant crisis in Spain's North Africa enclave
France and Italy bolstered border controls on Saturday after about 60,000 people crossed into Spain's enclave in North Africa, sparking one of the largest migrant crises for the European Union in recent years.
Finland and Denmark on Friday backed Italy's moves, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz demanded Morocco "take back illegal migrants immediately". France and Britain said they stood ready to help Spain with the sudden surge, even as France tightened border checks. Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said he was considering reinforcing border checks but saw no need to suspend Spain from the Schengen zone. Trump, meanwhile, warned: "It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people, and that same thing's going to happen to us if the Republicans don't get elected, except worse, much bigger. "Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares tried to allay fears, saying it was "not possible to travel from Ceuta and Melilla to the Peninsula without identifying oneself at a police checkpoint," referring to Spain's two North African enclaves. "Enough of this deliberate confusion". - Successive crises -Ceuta, a territory of 18. 5 square kilometres, and the nearby enclave of Melilla are Europe's only two land borders with Africa. Morocco's authorities have not yet issued an official statement on the flow of migrants. During a similar surge in 2021, more than 10,000 migrants reached Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco over the course of two days during a diplomatic spat between the two countries. The row erupted after Spain decided to host for medical treatment a leader of the Polisario Front, whose guerrillas fought a long war with Rabat over the independence of the Western Sahara region. by Lucia Diaz, with Hicham Rafih in Fnideq, Morocco