Morocco has blamed human traffickers, misinformation and confusion over a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling for last week’s deadly migrant crisis in Ceuta.

The country made the comments in its first public statement on the unprecedented border surge, which saw more than 60,000 people enter Ceuta illegally over two days and claimed at least 88 lives.

However, Rabat failed to explain why its security forces let thousands of people reach the Tarajal border crossing, where footage showed large crowds entering Ceuta with little to no intervention.

In a statement released by the Moroccan Interior Ministry, officials insisted the crisis was ‘neither spontaneous nor the result of circumstantial factors’, instead blaming criminal trafficking networks and what it described as a campaign of misleading information online.

According to Rabat, traffickers exploited widespread misunderstandings surrounding a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling on so-called ‘pushbacks’ at Ceuta and Melilla.

The ministry claimed that false interpretations of the judgment convinced many would-be migrants they would not be immediately returned if they entered Spain by sea.

Morocco also defended its handling of the crisis, claiming it had responded with an ‘impeccable’, proactive operation involving increased surveillance, enhanced security deployments and closer coordination between authorities.

The statement contrasts sharply with scenes witnessed in Ceuta, where Moroccan security forces appeared largely passive during much of Thursday and Friday as thousands of people crossed the border.

For the first time, Morocco also released its own death toll, confirming 11 fatalities on its side of the border (10 by drowning and one after falling from rocks near Ceuta).

The humanitarian crisis has since spread beyond Ceuta, with people-smuggling gangs shifting operations to the Campo de Gibraltar, ferrying Moroccan migrants to beaches around Algeciras and La Linea using speedboats and jet skis over the weekend.

The Moroccan government concluded by calling for migration to be managed through ‘shared responsibility, genuine solidarity and a fair distribution of the burden’, while insisting it remains committed to working with international partners to combat illegal migration and human trafficking.