About 60,000 migrants, most traveling by sea, crossed into the Spanish enclave from Morocco on Thursday and Friday, according to the paper. The vast majority have since returned to Morocco. Spanish authorities estimate at least 88 people died during the crossing, mainly by drowning.
In an editorial, the Times said "the sudden storming of the border, amplified by social media, was evidently a political provocation by Morocco", describing the mass influx as an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of Spanish control over the enclave. The paper said it also amounted to the use of "sudden waves of mass migration" as a weapon.
The Times said Morocco had used similar tactics before, in 2021 and in 1975. It said the 1975 episode led Madrid to relinquish control of Western Sahara.
According to the paper, the likely trigger for the Ceuta events was a recent visit by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to Algeria, which disputes Moroccan control of Western Sahara. The Times said Rabat reacts nervously to any sign of rapprochement between Algiers and Madrid.
The paper said such episodes can be seen by some politicians as a political opportunity, pointing to the strengthened position of Turkey's president following the 2015 humanitarian crisis, when the European Union — at the suggestion of German Chancellor Angela Merkel — paid Ankara to halt the flow of migrants.
The Times also cited events on the Poland-Belarus border. "Authorities transported thousands of potential migrants through forested border areas to the poorly protected borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. The aim was to trigger a humanitarian crisis and ultimately force Brussels to lift economic sanctions", the editorial said.
The paper said controlling borders is more than a partisan slogan, arguing it is about "preventing hostile actors from exploiting loopholes, triggering crises and using the pressure of sudden mass incursion to bypass traditional diplomacy and extract concessions".
"It was hard to resist the impression that would-be migrants were used by Morocco, their supposed homeland, for a cynical demonstration", the Times said.
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Source: PAP