Moroccan security forces arrest nearly 300 migrants trying to reach Spain's Ceuta

Moroccan security forces have arrested nearly 300 migrants attempting to reach the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. According to Medi 1 TV, 294 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were arrested on Saturday. Additionally, 61 Moroccans were arrested for allegedly facilitating the migration attempts.

The attempted crossings followed a surge in social media posts calling on migrants to make their way to Ceuta, a Spanish city on Morocco's northern coast. In response, Moroccan and Spanish authorities increased their security presence and limited movement toward the area. This comes two weeks after tens of thousands of would-be migrants, driven by poverty and misinformation, rushed toward Ceuta in one of the deadliest migration crises to hit the region, with at least 90 people reported dead on both sides of the border.

The Associated Press reported that the interior ministry did not respond to questions about the latest arrests or the number of security personnel deployed around the border. Meanwhile, a separate report from CBC News mentioned that hundreds of migrants who recently entered Ceuta staged a protest on a popular urban beach, urging Spanish authorities to grant them asylum instead of sending them back to Morocco.

Brief written by urgent.news from PBS NewsHour, Associated Press, Winnipeg Free Press, Hindustan Times - World News, CBC News — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.