Ceuta (Spain) (AFP) - The European Union on Friday scrambled to contain one of the largest migrant crises in recent years after some 60,000 people crossed into Spain’s enclave in north Africa, as Italy temporarily suspended an EU-wide free movement agreement with Madrid.

The migrants have entered Ceuta from Morocco, the local regional president Juan Jesus Vivas told reporters, but by Friday evening officials said more than 48,000 had returned.

To cross into Ceuta, many had swam around a small border barrier that juts out into the Mediterranean but at least 34 died in the attempt.

The sudden, massive influx sparked an international crisis.

France tightened checks on its border with Spain and reinforced police and gendarmes there.

Italy announced it had suspended its Schengen agreement, the zone allowing free movement between the borders of EU member states, with Spain.

Several European countries had already said Spain’s membership in the Schengen free movement zone should be suspended.

And across the Atlantic, US President Donald Trump led far-right efforts to seize on the crossing to advance hardline immigration policies.

- ‘Trafficking mafias’ -

Madrid rushed troops, more police, drones, divers and boats to the outpost that it has run for centuries as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his interior minister visited Friday.

On Friday, hundreds of migrants, mostly young men, were hanging around on the Morocco side of the border. But others were seen turning back, saying “there are too many people here”.

Inside Ceuta, shops were closed and annual fiestas were cancelled.

“It’s catastrophic,” said Mohammed, a local taxi driver and Ceuta resident.

“Sure, we sympathise with them – they’re having a terrible time in their own country, and all that – but this isn’t the way to enter a place, nor is it a way to live.”

Some previous surges have occurred during tensions between Spain and Morocco.

Sanchez visited Algiers on July 20 – the first such visit by a Spanish head of government in four years – marking a thaw in relations with Morocco’s rival Algeria.

But it was not clear if there was any connection between that visit and this latest influx.

Sanchez, in Ceuta, blamed the sudden inflow on people-traffickers spreading rumours about a Spanish Supreme Court ruling this month that irregular migrants arriving by sea could not be immediately returned.

“What has emerged from our talks with Moroccan authorities is that trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling,” he said.

That interpretation “spread like wildfire in recent hours”.

- Diplomatic fallout -

Fears of the crowds entering an EU member state, which normally does not enforce border controls between members, sparked diplomatic fallout.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on social media, called the scenes at Ceuta “unacceptable”.

“We cannot allow anyone to come to our (European) Union without abiding by our rules,” she added.

Finland and Denmark on Friday backed Italy’s line, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz demanded Morocco “take back illegal migrants immediately”.

France and Britain said they stood ready to help Spain with the sudden surge, even as Paris tightened border checks with Spain.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said he was considering reinforcing border checks but saw no need to suspend Spain from the Schengen zone.

US President Donald Trump warned: “It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people, and that same thing’s going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected, except worse, much bigger.”

Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares tried to douse those fears, saying: “It is not possible to travel from Ceuta and Melilla to the Peninsula without identifying oneself at a police checkpoint,” referring to Spain’s two north African enclaves.

“Enough of this deliberate confusion”.

- Successive crises -

Ceuta, a territory of 18.5 square kilometres (seven square miles), and the nearby enclave of Melilla are Europe’s only two land borders with Africa.

Morocco’s authorities have not yet issued an official statement on the flow of migrants.

During a similar surge in 2021, more than 10,000 migrants reached Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco over the course of two days during a diplomatic spat between the two countries.

The row erupted after Spain decided to host for medical treatment a leader of the Polisario Front, whose guerillas fought a long war with Rabat over the independence of the Western Sahara region.

The crisis ended in 2022 when Madrid reversed its long-standing policy of neutrality and backed Morocco’s plan for Western Sahara – a move that had caused a diplomatic rift between Madrid and Algiers.