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Ukrainian drone attacks on Black Sea resort and Crimea kill 11, Russia claims

Ukrainian drone attacks on a Black Sea resort and the annexed Crimea peninsula killed 11 people, Russian officials said after blaming Ukraine for another explosion that killed five people in a Moscow restaurant. Seven people, including three children, were killed when “drone debris” struck a beach in the seaside town of Arkhipo-Osipovka, the crisis task force for Russia’s southern Krasnodar region said on social media. Social media videos, verified by Reuters and the BBC, showed tourists in the water and on the shore watching on as what appeared to be a drone slammed into a busy beach. Another four people were killed in a Ukrainian strike on the illegally annexed Crimea, the Moscow-installed governor, Sergey Aksyonov, said in a post on Telegram. Both Crimea and the Black Sea coast are popular holiday destinations for Russian tourists during summer. Earlier, Russia blamed Ukraine for a bombing at a restaurant in central Moscow that killed five people, amid growing speculation that a senior Russian military commander was the intended target. The explosion occurred on Saturday evening near the entrance to an upmarket Italian restaurant in one of the city’s seven Stalin-era skyscrapers on Kudrinskaya Square. Russian prosecutors said an unidentified woman carrying an improvised explosive device had attempted to enter the restaurant but was stopped by a security guard. The device detonated moments later, killing five people and injuring 19 others. In a statement on Sunday, Russia’s foreign ministry accused Kyiv of carrying out the attack, saying: “The bloody tentacles of [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy’s terrorist gang have reached the Balzi Rossi Italian restaurant in Moscow.” Russian authorities have not identified the intended target or named the victims. However, pro-Kremlin military bloggers and several independent Russian media outlets reported that the attack may have been aimed at Col Gen Alexander Chaiko, the commander of Russia’s aerospace forces, who was reportedly attending a private banquet at the restaurant to celebrate his 55th birthday. Photographs and videos that appeared online shortly after the bombing, purportedly from the private event, showed a stage with the words “Aleksandr 55” displayed in the background. Chaiko is one of Russia’s top military commanders, having led the failed assault on Kyiv in early 2022 before later being promoted to command the Russian air force. The Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which is known for publishing leaks from within Russia’s security services, reported that Chaiko escaped unharmed. According to the channel, his daughter, Maria, was seriously injured in the blast, while her husband, Daniil Peredriy, was killed. They were outside on the restaurant’s terrace when the explosion occurred. The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that investigators believed the woman carrying the explosive device may not have known she was transporting a bomb, suggesting it was detonated remotely by another person, killing her. Among the other reported victims was a member of Russia’s elite Federal Protective Service (FSO). Kyiv has not yet commented on the incidents. Both sides have repeatedly said they do not target civilians in the conflict, which is now in its fifth year. In Ukraine, one person was killed and dozens more injured when Russian planes launched a 90-minute bombing blitz on residential districts in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional chief, Ivan Fedorov, said on Monday. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s intelligence agencies have targeted dozens of senior Russian military officers and Russia-installed officials, accusing them of involvement in war crimes. Ukrainian intelligence services have previously employed a range of tactics, relying on both willing saboteurs and unwitting civilians to carry out bombings. They have succeeded in killing at least four Russian generals and several other senior military figures, as well as pro-war activists deep inside Russian territory, although some operations have missed their intended targets. In 2022, a car bomb killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of the ultranationalist Russian ideologue Aleksandr Dugin, in an attack widely believed to have been intended for her father.

Trump claims strait of Hormuz could open ‘by tomorrow’ as Iran denies any talks taking place – as it happened

New talks between Washington and Tehran are the “last chance” for Iran to forge a deal and avoid an escalation of US strikes on the country, Donald Trump said on Monday. It comes a day after the US president again said he had called off further “massive strikes” because Gulf allies had urged diplomacy. It’s all very consistent with Trump’s repeated pattern over the last five months as he struggles to find an off-ramp; he threatens devastating military action, only to pull back at the last minute and claim the two sides are on the brink of an agreement to end the war. As my colleague Patrick Wintour notes, this is thought to be the 12th time in the war that Trump has called off threatened strikes. Indeed, Trump said he expected negotiations to begin in the next day or two to reopen the strait and create a pathway for Iran to address the US’s concerns about its nuclear programme. “The first phase is the opening of the straits. The second phase will be the denuclearization,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “And that will take a little while.” He also reiterated that he was running out of patience with Iran, saying “this the last chance for them to sign a good document.” However, Tehran had on Monday denied that talks with the US were taking place. Esmaeil Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, told reporters at a weekly press briefing on Monday that Iran is not currently holding any talks with the US – contradicting claims made by Trump on Sunday night that talks with Iran would happen the next day. Baghaei said that there were no plans to receive a delegation or send an Iranian one, and that Iran’s current focus was on negotiations with Oman over the strait of Hormuz. “We are now going to reach an understanding on a route acceptable to both sides – neither the northern route nor the southern route – but one that respects the sovereign rights of both sides and safeguards our national interests and security,” he said in an interview with Iranian state television. To that, the US president called the Iranian leadership “unbelievably duplicitous” in a post on social media. He wrote on Truth Social: “They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg’, talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman’.”

Why is Ceuta a migration flashpoint and how were so many people able to cross from Morocco?

What has happened and where? Border controls between Morocco and the tiny Spanish territory of Ceuta appeared to break down in the past week, allowing tens of thousands of people to cross on to the Spanish side in chaotic and dangerous scenes that resulted in dozens of deaths. The number of arrivals was more than two-thirds the size of the ordinary population in Ceuta, where a humanitarian crisis was playing out on Friday. Spanish officials said on Monday that an estimated 69,500 people who had arrived late last week in Ceuta had returned to Morocco. As of Monday, about 2,500 people who had made the crossing were believed to still be in Ceuta. Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish territory 400km (250 miles) to the east along north Africa’s Mediterranean coast, constitute the EU’s only land borders with Africa. In Spanish possession since 1580, Ceuta is home to a mixed population of Christians and Muslims, while its Spanish and Moroccan residents and day workers live in relative harmony. Morocco does not officially recognise Ceuta and Melilla as Spanish territories and often refers to them as occupied lands. Why is Ceuta a migration flashpoint? Spain is a main point of arrival into Europe for people seeking better economic opportunities or an escape from violence in their home countries. Ceuta and Melilla are heavily fortified as they are seen as destinations for those trying to reach Spain from Morocco and other parts of Africa. Many migrants who reach Ceuta or Melilla are immediately turned back, but others are held in migrant shelters while they apply for asylum in Spain. To reach Ceuta, people often swim from the Moroccan town of Fnideq, covering about 3 miles (5km). Others attempt the crossing from the nearer town of Belyounech. In 2022, 23 people were killed as about 2,000 people, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, attempted to cross into Melilla from Morocco, while in 2014 at least 14 people died off Ceuta when 200 people tried to enter by climbing the border fence or swimming around the breakwater that separates the city from Moroccan territory. Migrant arrivals to Ceuta and Melilla are generally much lower than those reaching Spain through the Canary and Balearic islands. Spain’s overall immigrant population has grown considerably in recent decades, with about 10 million people in the country of 50 million having been born elsewhere. Many are from Colombia, Venezuela and Morocco and work in key sectors of the Spanish economy including agriculture, tourism and the services sector. Since at least the mid-1990s, thousands of people cross the Mediterranean each year from north African countries and Turkey in search of asylum in Europe. According to figures from the International Organization for Migration, 35,153 migrant deaths and disappearances have been recorded in the Mediterranean since 2014, with 1,493 dead or missing during the first seven months of 2026. Why were so many people able to cross over? Spanish intelligence sources told El País that the roots of the influx probably lay in a hoax that had swiftly spread across social media after a Spanish supreme court ruling that migrants arriving by sea could not be summarily deported. As the hoax gained steam online, Moroccan border surveillance dwindled to a minimum until it was completely lifted late last week, allowing tens of thousands of people through. However, the crossing could be linked to the rivalry between Morocco and Algeria, and a recent trip by the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to Algiers. The last mass border crossing, in May 2021, took place after Morocco loosened border controls during a diplomatic row with Spain over Spain’s decision to allow the leader of the Western Sahara independence movement, the Polisario Front, to be treated for Covid-19 in Spain. Morocco and the Polisario Front both lay claim to Western Sahara, which was under Spanish rule until 1975, when colonial authorities handed over the territory to Morocco and Mauritania. That diplomatic crisis ended in 2022 when Madrid reversed its longstanding policy of neutrality and backed Morocco’s plan for Western Sahara – a move that had caused a diplomatic rift between Madrid and Algiers, which supports the Polisario group. Sánchez visited Algiers on 20 July – the first such visit by a Spanish head of government in four years – marking a thaw in relations with Algeria. Matteo Villa, a migration researcher at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, said politics was most likely involved. “What happened in 2021 was the small-scale version of what happened [on Friday],” he said. “I mean, 50,000 people do not come overnight when usually it’s hundreds per month. Sánchez going to Algeria is something Morocco didn’t really like.” Villa suggested Morocco may have loosened the border as a way of showing it has “the upper hand”, especially because authorities there know it would cause an overreaction in Europe. “They love seeing all the fighting between European countries,” he added. How have governments and authorities reacted? Spain deployed its armed forces and additional police to restore order after the breach, which Sánchez described as “a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity”. Images and footage of the border chaos sparked a crisis for the Spanish government and divisions within the EU, where rightwing politicians blamed the incident on Spain’s policy of legalising hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants this year. Italy’s far-right government went so far as to call for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen free-movement zone – even though Ceuta and Melilla do not fall under Schengen arrangements in the usual way – while France tightened its borders with Spain.

Fresh US-Iran talks are ‘last chance’ for Tehran to avoid war escalating, Trump says

New talks between Washington and Tehran are the “last chance” for Iran to forge a deal and avoid an escalation of US strikes on the country, Donald Trump said on Monday. Trump said he expected negotiations to begin in the next day or two to reopen the strait of Hormuz and create a pathway for Iran to address the US’s concerns about its nuclear programme. “The first phase is the opening of the straits. The second phase will be the denuclearisation,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “And that will take a little while.” Trump reiterated that he was running out of patience with Iran. “This is the last chance for them to sign a good document.” Iran has been in discussions with Oman about the creation of a temporary route through the strait that would allow commercial shipping to resume, but is not yet reviving talks with the US, Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said earlier on Monday. Esmail Baghaei denied claims by Trump that talks between the two sides covering all the major disputes between them could restart as early as Monday. “We are not currently negotiating with the United States,” he said. Trump claimed he had held off from launching the biggest strike on any country “since world war two” over the weekend after Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, rang him to urge diplomacy. Trump said the cancellation was conditional on Iran reaching a deal quickly. It is thought to be the 12th time in the war between the US and Iran that Trump has called off threatened strikes. On Monday, the US president called the Iranian leadership “unbelievably duplicitous” in a post on social media. “They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg’, talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman’. They then go on to give their usual blather in saying, the Strait of Hormuz will be operated powerfully by them, when it is already completely controlled by the United States Navy and our ‘Blockade’.” A middle route through the strait would represent progress. Iran is claiming full sovereignty over the strait and has been making demands over its routes and future management, including the possibility of charging fees in return for providing ships with maritime services. One proposal is to create a joint Omani-Iranian company that would provide all the services that insurance companies used to provide at high costs, but at lower prices, and with preferential tariffs for some countries. Unlocking a mutually acceptable route through the strait is the precondition to unlocking all the other agreements laid out in the memorandum of understanding, the ceasefire document both sides signed on 18 June. Disagreements about the memorandum’s obligations has led to a resumption of the war, which has spread to the Red Sea and to Iraq. Last week, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said Tehran was demanding that ships entering the strait take a route to the north close to Iran, but that some ships could take a southern route. Iran rejected the traffic being divided evenly between the two routes, and also that a third country could start de-mining the routes. Baghaei told a press conference in Tehran: “We are now talking about a corridor that will have a round trip route, not two or three separate routes. This intermediate route is to be used temporarily until a decision is made on a fixed route.” He framed the route as an alternative to the transport separation scheme, the longstanding prewar route overseen by the UN’s International Maritime Office. He said maps had been exchanged by the two sides. Baghaedi said an agreement on a route would not solve all the problems, pointing to the continuing US naval blockade of Iran’s ports, and that unless the US approach changed, there would be no significant improvement in the situation in the strait. Recently there had been gloom in Omani circles about reaching an agreement with Iran on routes, leading to a revival of preparations for Oman’s European allies to start to clear the southern route of mines, a step that might have provoked direct conflict between Iran and European powers. In a sign of the pressure Tehran diplomats face, a statement from the Assembly of Experts, the body of clerics that elects the supreme leader, warned against investing any trust in the US, saying: “Hope for understanding and agreement with this bullying regime will lead nowhere.” However, the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said he believed the “memorandum of understanding would prove to be the centre of gravity of our foreign relations in the future”. The Saudis’ intervention came in a week in which Riyadh attacked Iranian-backed forces inside Iraq and raised the temperature in its dispute with the Iranian-backed Houthis in northern Yemen, underlining the extent to which Saudi Arabia fears the consequence of an all-out US war against Iran spiralling out of control across the Middle East. Additional reporting by Associated Press

Athens suitcase death: suspect admits hiding body but denies murder

Greek authorities are investigating what may have motivated a 26-year-old Afghan man to kill a Scottish charity worker found dead in a suitcase in an abandoned building in Athens last month. Inquiries have focused increasingly on Elisabeth-Jane Ross’s last few hours alive and police believe they hold the key to revealing why the 38-year-old was targeted. On Sunday the suspect, identified as Sharif Ahmadzai, was accused of intentional homicide after three days of questioning. He will appear before an investigating magistrate to be formally charged on Wednesday. George Kalliakmanis, the honorary president of the police officers’ association in Athens, told the Guardian the homicide division was now intent on discovering the motive behind “the murder” because the Afghan was continuing to deny any role in it, although he had confessed to hiding Ross in a suitcase. “He has admitted to carrying her body in a trolley to the site. Police have CCTV footage of him doing this on the night of 16 July. He has also confessed to withdrawing €10,000 from ATMs using credit cards that belonged to her. But he has denied murder which police do not believe,” Kalliakmanis said. The Afghan, a professional boxer in the lightweight division, is believed to have arrived in Greece via the island of Lesbos as a child refugee at the height of Europe’s migration crisis 10 years ago. He has been quoted as telling police he discovered Ross’s lifeless body in the first floor flat of an apartment block he helped manage in Exarchia, a bohemian district in downtown Athens popular among leftists, foreigners and NGOs. Ahmadzai, who married a US citizen and devout Christian, Alaina Hall, in 2023, had keys to the flat where their own refugee solidarity group, Love Every Nation, regularly met. Investigators have confirmed that Ross, a friend of Hall’s with similar volunteering experience and religious views, had moved to the apartment on 10 July after staying with Greek friends and arriving the capital from Edinburgh on 26 June. Her last telephone call was made from her mobile phone on the night of 15 July – three days before her body was discovered by a homeless man in an abandoned building in Kypseli, about two miles away. Two possible scenarios in the run up to Ross’s death were being studied, police said. “We believe there was a confrontation,” said one source. “But that was spurred by Ross discovering the Afghan rummaging through her things and stealing her credit cards, or was it a case of sexual assault or the Briton spurning his advances?” Forensic scientists believe Ross was “likely asphyxiated” after an initial on-site postmortem, which showed there were no evident signs of injuries on her body. However, the autopsy was also deemed inconclusive because of advanced decay. Further toxicological tests and analysis of vital organs are expected to determine the exact cause of death in the coming days. Hall, who met Ahmadzai on Lesbos, is widely described as having played a “significant role” in the investigation. After allegedly becoming suspicious of Ahmadzai’s movements – and newfound wealth, the result of making cash withdrawals with Ross’s credit cards – she reportedly contacted the police, handed over cash he had given her and moved into a hotel. Adding to the mystery that has engulfed the inquiry, Ross’s phone was used for several days after her death, with text messages sent to family and friends. The messages were described as “deliberately misleading” by police, who believe they were sent in a bid to delay Ross being declared missing. One spoke of her “need to be alone”. “The Afghan’s partner was very helpful,” said Kalliakmanis. “From the day the victim was identified the investigation faced several challenges but thanks to the homicide division being so thorough they cracked it.” Police, who collaborated with the UK’s National Crime Agency and the Scottish service, combed through CCTV footage from cameras in the area where the suitcase was found and from banks where cash withdrawals were made before identifying the suspect.

Letter: Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani obituary

The reign of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani as emir of Qatar, from 1995 to 2013, was controversial. Although around 88% of Qatar’s residents were and remain foreign workers, laws intended to protect them were rarely enforced. Passport confiscation for the large numbers of migrant workers was commonplace, as were human trafficking and overcrowded and unsanitary labour camps. The emir arbitrarily made more than 5,000 Qataris of the Ghufran clan stateless, depriving them of state jobs, education and healthcare. Some of them stated that this was collective punishment, because some members were involved in a failed coup attempt in 1996. Injustices have continued as a result. In 2012, a Qatari court tried the poet Mohamed al Ajami in secret, and sentenced him to life imprisonment, apparently for criticism of the emir. He had already been held in custody for a year, and was released in 2016, following international pressure. A law punishing criticism of the emir with up to five years’ imprisonment remained in place.

Trump meets his obstinate match in Iran’s hardball regime

The Donald Trump doctrine has always contained a tenuous relationship with the truth. It was his mentor, the infamous New York lawyer Roy Cohn, who taught the young real estate mogul always to claim victory and never to admit defeat. Unfortunately for Trump, in Iran the US president has found a counterpart just as stubborn as himself. As Trump claims new negotiations are to begin with Tehran this week, Iran has shown it can also reignite the conflict by lobbing ballistic missiles at US bases in the region and maintaining a stranglehold on the strait of Hormuz, effectively taking initiative in the stalled peace process. And time is of the essence for Trump as the clock ticks toward a global energy crisis and a painful midterm elections for him and his Republican party. But as soon as his latest attempt to hammer out a peace deal was announced, it was denied by Iran and the US president was left fuming once again. “Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” he posted to his social media site, Truth Social, saying that Iran had begged for a meeting and talks had already begun. “Nothing gets through to Iran, unless we want it to, and nothing will get through, unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished.” Trump has suggested dozens of times since the beginning of the war that a deal with Iran is imminent, and his latest claim that new negotiations could produce a peace deal within days has shown the administration’s desperation to reopen the strait and find a road map out of the crisis. After promising to hit Iran “very hard”, Trump made a U-turn on Sunday and claimed that talks would continue and that the “perimeters of a deal” for the opening of Hormuz and the “denuclearization of Iran” had been agreed. Unfortunately, the Iranians don’t agree. In a statement on Monday, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson denied any peace negotiations were taking place. “We are not currently negotiating with the United States,” said Esmaeil Baqaei. “Our negotiations are with Oman to secure passage through the strait of Hormuz.” That may result in an agreement. But that will not result in the return of the strait of Hormuz to its prewar status, Baqaei added, in effect keeping the waterway a political football for the foreseeable future. “We must ensure that the strait of Hormuz cannot be misused by parties that have committed aggression against Iran,” said Baqaei. Little has changed since the last round of negotiations. Iran remains capable of closing the strait of Hormuz and stifling shipping – including a fifth of global oil supply – through the crucial waterway. The US remains capable of inflicting devastating strikes on Iran – despite a shortage of key munitions that could be needed for a war against key rivals like China – but has a lack of meaningful targets that could force Iran to change its policy. The Trump administration has been signalling a desire to end the conflict since April and three ceasefires have come and collapsed since then. With just over three months left until the US midterm elections, in which the Republicans are expected to lose the House and possibly even the Senate, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll last week showed that fewer than a third of Americans support the war in Iran, and 69% believe that Trump has not “clearly explained the goals of US military involvement in Iran”. For Iran, the strategic unpredictability has become a new weapon in a war that has counterintuitively strengthened its negotiating position, giving the regime new tools in slowing global oil supply and in attacking regional US allies in the Gulf. Iran has concluded that its best strategy is to “maximise the pain that they can impose on the United States and its partners in the region”, said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and an expert on Middle East security issues with a focus on Iran, during the institute’s podcast last week. The view there was that Trump “is not really yet ready for a deal with Iran, not a deal that would work for the Iranians anyway”. Iran is also facing a time crunch with a US blockade in effect halting trade out of the country. “They are now at a point where they don’t think just sitting back and having one round after another of diplomatic talks is the best way forward,” he added. “They’re trying to shake things up to try get Trump’s attention and see if they can get a different result.”

Stronger EU borders needed after Ceuta crisis, von der Leyen says

The president of the European Commission has called for action to strengthen Europe’s borders after tens of thousands of people arrived and quickly left the Spanish territory of Ceuta, triggering a furious row between Madrid and other European countries. In a letter to Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen said: “From this incident, it is clear that we must do more to further strengthen our borders at critical points, including vigilant monitoring and the use of physical barriers where needed.” She praised the Spanish socialist leader’s swift handling of the crisis, after the vast majority of migrants left Ceuta and Spanish officials began installing a 500-metre (1,640ft) floating barrier at the border ‌with Morocco. “Order has been restored and the returns system in place worked,” she wrote in the letter. Spain ⁠estimates that about 69,500 migrants have returned to Morocco over the past four days, exceeding initial estimates of 50,000 having arrived in the enclave in north Africa on Thursday. Authorities in Ceuta reported that 88 people died trying to reach the territory, while at least 11 deaths have been recorded in Morocco. Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish enclave, have the EU’s only land borders with Africa. There are periodic surges in attempted crossings to both cities, although neither permits onward free movement to the EU as they are outside the border-free Schengen zone. EU interior ministers will hold emergency talks on Tuesday, which von der Leyen said would be a chance to draw lessons from the crossings. She said the EU should double down on five areas: strengthening cooperation with non-EU countries to prevent migration; stronger external borders; implementing early warning systems; dismantling smuggling networks; and boosting returns of people with no right to stay. Italian media reported that Giorgia Meloni’s government wanted to accelerate the opening of offshore migration centres, which Europe’s top human rights expert recently said risked becoming “human rights black holes”. The EU opened the door to offshore detention centres in June in an unprecedented departure from legal norms as part of a law aiming to increase the deportations of people with no legal right to stay. Amid heavy criticism of the EU’s divided response to the Ceuta border crossings, von der Leyen stressed that Spain could access EU funds as well as support from the Frontex border agency. So far Madrid has not requested the assistance of Frontex. The crossings – seized on by far-right politicians across Europe – have exposed deep divisions over migration that have left Spain’s leader isolated. Over the weekend, Sánchez criticised other governments for failing to support Spain, after Italy and Denmark led calls for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen zone. Sánchez said such an attitude was “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest” and contrary to European and humanitarian law “and the principles of solidarity that bind us together”. Italy and Denmark organised a letter signed by 20 other EU member states that appeared to blame the crisis on Sánchez’s decision to regularise the status of 500,000 migrants without documents. “We have a duty to effectively deter and relentlessly combat illegal migration,” the 22 leaders wrote, arguing for the need to address “all policies that can serve as pull factors, such as the regularisation of [a] very large number of irregular migrants”. EU member states favouring a tough approach to migration are expected to raise the issue of “pull factors” on Tuesday. “There is some concern that the regularisation of 1.2 million people can be used to paint a picture that the door is open,” an EU diplomat said, referring to the approximate number of people who applied for regularisation under the 2026 Spanish government programme. Academic research has found no evidence of a pull effect from regularisation programmes on arrivals of irregular migrants. Michele LeVoy, the director of Picum, an umbrella group that campaigns for the rights of undocumented migrants, said regularisation programmes had been criticised by EU governments for the last two decades. “If an EU country offers regularisation possibilities, other member states believe that it may invite secondary movement [onward movement to other EU member states] – that is what EU member states don’t want and that explains most likely the harsh response.” Amid widespread suspicion that Morocco helped fuel the crisis, von der Leyen described the country as “an important strategic partner”, especially in combating “illegal migration”. Officials said that before the Ceuta crossings, the European Commission was looking to upgrade the EU’s diplomatic relationship with Morocco to a “strategic and comprehensive partnership”. The EU already has similar wide-ranging agreements with Egypt and Tunisia, which include pledges to stem migration, but which have been heavily criticised by rights groups. Von der Leyen wrote: “On anything related to Ceuta and Melilla, we could enhance border management early-warning systems and improve our technical and financial support to Morocco.” Rights groups said people seeking work or fleeing persecution needed routes to move safely. LeVoy said: “On Ceuta, political games are being played over the lives of people on both sides of the border – those who hope for a better life, and those who are made to fear a so-called ‘invasion’. But what happened in and around Ceuta is fundamentally the result of Europe’s inaction on decent work permits and other regular pathways and the dismantling of its asylum systems.”