The Disappeared of Ceuta: Families Left Waiting

• Following the mass border crossing of approximately 80,000 people into Ceuta in late July, dozens of individuals remain missing, leaving families in a state of desperate uncertainty.
• Families are turning to social media to search for loved ones while facing a lack of communication and coordination between Spanish and Moroccan authorities.

The Plight of Searching Families

• Mothers like Houda wait in Tetuán for news of her 21-year-old son, Youssef, while others hold photographs of missing children at the border fences in Castillejos.
• Ihsan, traveling from Milan, has been seeking her 28-year-old nephew, Suleiman, at the Spanish Guardia Civil office in Ceuta, citing despair over the silence and lack of police coordination between the two countries.
• Yasmina, among others, continues to search for family members who attempted the crossing without their families' knowledge.

The Dual Role of Social Media

• Platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp have become the primary tools for families to disseminate photos and contact information in hopes of finding their children, siblings, or friends.
• These same digital spaces were previously used to share videos and tips on how to cross the border, creating a painful paradox where platforms used to facilitate the crossing are now the venues for tracking the missing.

An Unprecedented Migration Crisis

• Official figures indicate that roughly 80,000 people entered Ceuta between July 30 and 31, with the vast majority returned shortly thereafter.
• As of mid-August, approximately 7,000 to 8,000 people remain in Ceuta, including thousands of minors and potential asylum seekers from Sudan, Yemen, and Palestine.
• The crisis has highlighted the dependency of the border on Spanish-Moroccan diplomatic relations, exposing failures in police coordination, repatriation policies, and the care of minors.