Am I exaggerating with that headline? Perhaps a bit; perhaps not:

An unprecedented wave of 60,000 illegal migrants from Africa has flooded the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, prompting Spain to deploy its military – as locals liken the invasion to an “apocalypse.”

Harrowing local media reports reveal residents and business owners in Ceuta – a Spanish territory located on the north African coast – are terrified to open their doors amid the rush of migrants, many of whom arrived wearing nothing but swimwear without a penny or possession to their name.

“Businesses closed. Shops shut because if you open a business, it gets overrun … We’re scared. The streets are packed. There are no measures in place. It’s every man for himself. They’re not giving us any help,” a terrified downtown restaurant owner who didn’t want to give their name told state-owned Spanish media outlet RTVE.

Why Spain? Look at a map – it’s very close.

Why now? The Spanish Supreme Court recently seemed to give the green light:

The shocking surge comes after a ruling by Spain’s Supreme Court earlier this month, which said migrants intercepted at sea while attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla, another Spanish autonomous city in northern Morocco, cannot be immediately kicked out.

Also, the government has recently been engaged in an amnesty program of sorts:

Meanwhile, the socialist Spanish government — which just months ago launched a program to give legal status to some 500,000 illegal immigrants in the country — said it deployed 200 specialized police officers and 60 troops from the mainland to assist Ceuta’s own forces on Friday.

Two hundred is just window-dressing, it seems to me.

One more thing: Spain has been a target from the Muslim world for a long time – a target in the sense of its having once been a Muslim land, although that ended in 1492 with the Reconquista. But once a Muslim land, always a Muslim land, according to a large faction of Muslims. Can we call this an attempt at the Re-Reconquista?

The government says the newcomers are being expelled, so perhaps this is just a temporary test:

However, by Friday afternoon the Spanish Interior Minister said the country was expelling migrants at a rate of 150 per minute, and that 25,000 had already returned home after the sudden influx triggered a humanitarian crisis.

Many had also returned voluntarily, the government said.

The leadership of Spain has blamed human traffickers, and the government of Morocco is said to be cooperating with the return.

Here’s an interesting comment:

Carmen Gonzalez Bermudez who was in the city to see her parents told the BBC that the past day had been “very overwhelming”.

She said she saw “thousands and thousands and thousands of people in swimming costumes and all wet, just coming from the sea”, adding that “I know most of them are nice people just looking for a better future for themselves. But we cannot give that to them”.

ADDENDUM:

Italy has noticed, and has suspended its Schengen Agreement with Spain and has closed its “sea and air borders” with that country. The EU head says this:

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, said: “The images coming from Ceuta are unacceptable. We cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules. Dangerous crossings must stop immediately. Smuggling networks must be dismantled. And returns must be swift, as our rules allow.”

Well, what are you actually going to do about it?

The territory of Spain that was invaded is not Spain proper, by the way – it’s described this way:

The city of Ceuta, a peninsular region covering 19.9 sq. km (7.7 sq. mi) on Africa’s northern coast, is one of two Spanish exclaves on the continent, along with Melilla, which is about 220 km (140 mi) southeast.

The two Spanish autonomous cities represent the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. Spain has possessed Ceuta, which is separated from mainland Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar, since 1580.

Ceuta has a population of more than 83,000, a mix of Christians and Muslims, including residents and day workers from Morocco and Spain. Ceuta’s population has generally lived harmoniously.

But Morocco, which largely surrounds the two exclaves, still treats them as occupied lands and challenges Spain’s sovereignty, citing history dating back to the Islamic conquests during the 8th century.

So Morocco actually claims the territory officially. You can find a map and some history in this article. So if Ceuta is part of the African continent, why did many of these “migrants” come by water? Because the land border sports a big fence built in 1193-1995:

The fence consists of parallel 6 metre (20-foot) high fences topped with barbed wire, with regular watchposts and a road running between them to accommodate police patrols or ambulance service in case of need. Underground cables connect spotlights, noise and movement sensors, and video cameras to a central control booth; dozens of guard ships and patrol boats check the coast, while 621 Guardia Civil officers and 548 police officers control the shore.

Also see this commentary from Brendan O’Neill:

Yet even if the Spanish manage to tame this searing crisis of sovereign rule – and that’s a big ‘if’ – the lessons of it should reverberate not only across Spain but all of Europe. For the fall of Ceuta exposes the lethal strain in globalism. It speaks – screams in fact – to the chaotic trashing of sovereignty, democracy and our very way of life that globalism and its gold-collared acolytes have brought about.

The storming of Ceuta shatters the falsehoods of the left. …

The whole world can see there are virtually no women and children in those mobs. The whole world knows Morocco is not ravaged by war or hunger. From now on, every utterance of the phrase ‘asylum seeker’ should invoke noisy, angry scepticism.

The Ceuta crisis also confirms that the moral cowardice of the modern state is like a red rag to hostile actors.

I can’t say I agree with O’Neill about what “the whole world knows.” There’s always suicidal empathy.