Migrants wait in line to receive food and beverage from the Red Cross, following mass crossings of migrants on foot and by sea from Morocco into Spanish territory, in Ceuta, Spain, August 3, 2026. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY


Last week’s irregular entry of tens of thousands of migrants from Morocco to Ceuta left 77 people dead in the Spanish north African territory, officials said on Tuesday, raising a previous toll of 75.

Many migrants drowned as they tried to swim around a barrier in the Mediterranean Sea from July 30 in scenes that sparked a diplomatic crisis between Spain and its EU partners.

A Spanish legal body responsible for the identification work, composed of forensics and Civil Guard experts, said in a statement that authorities in Ceuta had recovered 79 bodies from the sea.

But two of them were taken on July 29 and early on July 30, before the surge, leaving a toll of 77, the statement added.

Forensics experts had carried out 77 autopsies and identified two people who were already registered in Spain through their fingerprints.

“To be able to identify the rest, the fingerprint data will have to be sent to Morocco for their possible recognition,” the statement said.

The Spanish government’s delegation in Ceuta had raised the death toll from 72 to 75 earlier on Tuesday.

Morocco’s interior ministry on Sunday said 11 people died on the Moroccan side of the border, all but one by drowning.

Spain says 70,000 of the 72,000 migrants who reached Ceuta have returned to Morocco.

Those who remain face squalid living conditions with limited access to shelter, food, water and sanitation, AFP reporters in Ceuta saw.

rbj-imm/phz