Spanish royals visit Ceuta amid tensions with Morocco over migrant influx

Cheering crowds waving Spanish flags filled Ceuta on Tuesday as King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia made a diplomatically sensitive visit to the city following July's migrant influx from Morocco. Their trip is the first royal visit since 2007, when a diplomatic crisis erupted with neighbouring Morocco, which claims sovereignty over Ceuta and Spain's other North African territory of Melilla. To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: Los reyes de España, Felipe y Letizia, junto a las infantas Leonor y Sofía, asisten a un desfile militar con motivo de la Fiesta Nacional del país en Madrid, España, el 12 de octubre de 2026. © Reuters/Alejandro Martínez Vélez 03:51 More than 70,000 migrants streamed into the small city of around 80,000 inhabitants in an unprecedented surge on July 30-31. Scores died. Most returned to Morocco in the following hours, but thousands have remained for weeks in often dire conditions, sleeping rough in the streets or on the beach. The crisis has ...