Disinformation invades social networks during migration crisis in Ceuta

Claims: “not a single woman” and “Spanish police attacked by Moroccans” 

On the morning of Thursday, July 30, the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, located on the African continent in northern Morocco, were the target of a wave of irregular entrances of tens of thousands migrants, especially young Moroccans who swam around the spike of El Tarajal, which serves as a border in Ceuta, or jumped the fences, and immediately the theme invaded the social networks.

One of the main narratives that has been circulating since the first hours is that Spain was being “invaded by men of military age”, as Santiago Abascal, leader of the Spanish far-right party, Vox, denounced: https://archive.ph/Muvyw.

The theory that “not a single woman” appeared in the images of the crisis between Morocco and Spain was repeated by several national and international accounts, some with hundreds of thousands of views: https://archive.ph/3WM83, https://archive.ph/gJL56, https://archive.ph/LEIGU, https://archive.ph/ay4Hp, https://archive.ph/xrCPl and https://archive.ph/cLvoQ (examples).

The networks were also filled with dozens of videos associated with the theme, such as the alleged stoning of several Spanish police cars in Ceuta or Melilla, depending on the sources: https://archive.ph/9iZ5u, https://archive.ph/IxmIi and https://archive.ph/TuPEm (examples).

Among the accounts that shared these images and others of alleged confrontations in Ceuta is AfD, the German far-right party, in publications that already exceed 3 million views on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter): https://archive.ph/Z2dOV, https://archive.ph/GdEBK and https://archive.ph/Ud6eO.

The video includes a second scene of the stoning of police cars next to a roundabout, images that are also being shared as a “confrontation between Spanish and Islamic illegal police who invaded Ceuta and Melilla”: https://archive.ph/NDniO and https://archive.ph/Rhv4j (examples).

Facts: thousands of men, women and children crossed the border, but videos of clashes with authorities were recorded in Morocco 

The narrative of the invasion carried out only by migrant men of military age, without any woman, does not resist half a dozen minutes of reading of the main Spanish media or of viewing the images of Spanish and international agencies.

There are dozens of records of the entry of women, young people and children, as well as whole families with babies, as they narrate and show the reports made on the site: https://archive.ph/VN4zM, https://archive.ph/V0Llt, https://archive.ph/bCNpv, https://archive.ph/31ydA, https://archive.ph/Tic2i, https://archive.ph/HwcQj, https://archive.ph/GUKHB and https://archive.ph/yxG8X (examples).

The alleged attack on the Spanish police, including the stoning of vehicles in Melilla or Ceuta, is also not confirmed by the fact-finding by analysing the images and comparing the cars visible on the video with those of the authorities present on both sides of the border.

In fact, the images record the assault on cars of two Moroccan public safety services, Gendarmerie Royale and Sûreté Nationale, since the decoration and symbols correspond to these Moroccan forces: https://archive.ph/EJUML and https://archive.ph/K8Qs6.

In addition, the type of road and public lighting also reveals that they are images captured on the road between the Moroccan city of Fnideq and the Ceuta border (https://archive.ph/M5IqG) and not in Melilla, Spanish enclave more than 200 kilometres away.

The images of young people throwing stones at authorities on a roundabout were filmed in the Moroccan border town of Beni Ansar, near the autonomous city of Melilla, and not Ceuta, as stated.

Various videos of Moroccan and international media as well as Spanish verifiers prove this: https://archive.ph/Bye0, https://archive.ph/pSW9w, https://archive.ph/ewomq and https://archive.ph/KQTHV.

They also circulate old videos that are being shared in a disinformation way, such as these images (https://archive.ph/r3fMa) which are actually from a previous migration crisis, promoted by Morocco in 2021 (https://archive.ph/JMuXX).

There is even a video of a religious celebration in Turkey that is being attributed to Ceuta, as has already been verified by the Public newspaper’s Facts Proof (https://archive.ph/G3a1A), and the Spanish verifiers of the EFE Verifies (https://archive.ph/BFCHo), Newtral (https://archive.ph/kXg3c) and Verifiertve (https://archive.ph/8Ldz5).

Evaluation Lusa Verifies: False, but

As usual in ‘breaking news’, especially when it involves more polarizing issues such as immigration or security, social networks have filled themselves with false or decontextualized content about the migration crisis recorded in the last two days in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco, which is real and has left nearly six dozen dead: https://archive.ph/G8VV1.

This episode still has a lot to clarify, but it is notorious that false narratives are circulating promoted by the far right and that authentic videos are being shared misleadingly, in some cases because they are images of confrontations in Morocco that are shared as having occurred in Spanish territories, and in others because they are images of other events and even other countries that are being reused to make misinformation.