Jim Lawley

Spain’s socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez could have waited until August next year before facing the voters. Instead, he has called a snap election for 29 November. In Sánchez's announcement, he declared that Spain had become a global benchmark for peace, feminism and prosperity, claiming the best economic and social results achieved by any democratic government in Spain. Recognising that his ‘progressive’ coalition government has also made mistakes, Sánchez, who has been prime minister for eight years, explained that in order to do more he needs to ‘renew and broaden the support of the people’. The immediate trigger was Friday’s defeat of his emergency housing legislation.

Ceuta, population 83,000, suffered what is being described as its worst night of vandalism last night since some 70,000 migrants poured across the Moroccan border at the end of July. Vehicles and rubbish containers were set alight in several districts, fires were started among belongings in migrant encampments and police intervened in several fights between migrants. Madrid puts the number remaining in its North African exclave at around 5,000. But current estimates in Ceuta suggest it is almost double. Night after night, Spanish television shows disturbing scenes from Ceuta Nearly 13,000 pupils are due to return to school today under an extraordinary security operation.

Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has accused social media networks linked to Israel and Russia of spreading misinformation that helped fuel the crisis culminating in the sudden mass arrival of approximately 80,000 mostly Moroccan and sub-Saharan African migrants in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta (population 83,000) on 30 and 31 July. Madrid says some 5,000 remain in the city on the North African coast, although other estimates put the number considerably higher. Like other EU leaders, Sánchez has consistently opposed Russia’s war in Ukraine. But he has gone much further than most in his criticism of Israel, repeatedly describing its actions in Gaza as ‘genocide’.

Just under a month has passed since the sudden, mass arrival of approximately 80,000 mostly Moroccans and sub-Saharan Africans in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta (population 83,000) on 30 and 31 July. Some 8,000 remain in the city on the North African coast.  The government’s most immediate problem is where to accommodate them. At the moment thousands of migrants are still sleeping rough on the streets or in the surrounding countryside.  Ceuta’s local newspaper, El Faro, reports that the Education Ministry announced last night that when pupils return on 8 September, there will be uniformed security on school routes, at entrances and exits, during break times, and around schools in the afternoons and overnight.

With Spain still reeling from the extraordinary scenes in Ceuta, the country's Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez has decamped to La Mareta, the government’s palatial retreat on Lanzarote. Before beginning his holiday, he made a brief visit to the exclave, where, according to Madrid, some 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco and the local authorities say 88 bodies were recovered. Nearly a week later, Ceuta’s government says 3,000 to 5,000 migrants remain; Madrid puts the figure at 2,500. Around 400 are still living on El Trampolín beach, sheltering under blankets and makeshift structures. Food and water are now being distributed, but provision has been patchy: some say they went up to five days without food. Sanitation remains rudimentary.