Spanish Intelligence and security reports declassified on Wednesday revealed warnings of possible "mass entries" by migrants into Ceuta just before thousands crossed into Spain's North African enclave from Morocco.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had told parliament he would declassify about 40 documents to prove there was "no information that conveyed the magnitude" of "the crisis we were going to suffer" on July 30 and 31.

In those two days, tens of thousands of people from Morocco undertook a risky journey through the sea and across the land border to reach the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, sparking one of the biggest migration crises in Europe in recent times.

Videos and images showed crowds of people walking around the breakwaters at an urban beach near a border checkpoint with Morocco onto local roads in Ceuta. The majority looked to be young men. At least 19 migrants died according to Spanish police and local media.

Mass entries

"Internal communications have been detected in migrant groups in which they are trying to organise mass entries on the night of 29/07/2026," read a document from CENIF, a border division of the National Police, issued on the eve of the arrival of more than 70,000 migrants in the small Spanish territory.

CENIF said almost 1,000 people swam in from Morocco between July 1 and 28 -- "a drastic upward trend compared to last year," and "a consolidated and priority threat."

An urgent memo from the National Intelligence Centre on the afternoon of July 29 warned of "several calls to carry out entries into Ceuta" in Facebook groups, one of them with over 160,000 members, the declassified documents further revealed.

The opposition has accused the government of failing to act despite being warned about what was going on.

"The government knew everything that was happening... They had the information. They are directly responsible for the invasion of Ceuta," Ester Munoz, spokeswoman for the right-wing Popular Party in parliament, told reporters.

In a message on X posted Wednesday, Sanchez said that "with the information available at the time, no one could have foreseen the migration crisis that unfolded on the 30th and 31st. No competent body did so. Neither in Spain nor in the EU."

Sanchez has insisted his government did not receive any report that would have allowed it to anticipate the scale of what was going to happen.