Ceuta government delegate resigns after migrant influx, citing harassment and pressure on his family

‘I have suffered a constant campaign of harassment, and I have even received a funeral wreath. That is violence, and it has also affected my family and friends. I am from Ceuta; this city matters deeply to me,’ Pérez Triano said in a statement to the press. He took no questions and announced that he was leaving politics and relinquishing his party positions.

He also accused unnamed parties of trying to ‘profit’ politically from the crisis. ‘The worst part of this period has been working in a very hostile environment and seeing how some have preferred to profit from the situation. Ceuta deserves to be treated as a matter of state, not as a stage for electoral calculations,’ he said.

Sources at the prime minister’s office described the resignation as a personal decision after weeks of intense work. Pérez Triano said he had told Ángel Víctor Torres, the minister overseeing the government’s response in Ceuta, several days ago that he did not wish to continue. He submitted his resignation in writing on Monday. The cabinet must formalise his departure and could do so as early as Tuesday.

Delegate says his office warned Madrid

Pérez Triano rejected suggestions that his office had failed to communicate the worsening situation. He said it had reported an increase in arrivals following a Supreme Court ruling that prevented the immediate return of people who reached Ceuta by swimming.

‘We could see the situation getting worse, and we reported it,’ he said. His office had issued daily reports and communications before 30 July, he added, although ‘nothing suggested’ that an influx on the scale that followed was imminent. ALSO READ: Spain had warnings of mass migrant crossings into Ceuta, but not their scale, documents reveal. 

According to Pérez Triano, the government delegation and the Guardia Civil police raised the alarm, sought all available resources and requested the army’s intervention on the morning the crisis unfolded.

Sources at the delegation told Spanish state broadcaster RTVE that a report sent to Madrid around 10 days beforehand described migration pressure as unusually high for the summer and requested reinforcements at the border. They said approximately 1,500 migrants were already outside Ceuta’s temporary reception centre when that warning was issued. Government sources, meanwhile, said the State Secretariat for Security had remained in contact with the delegation throughout July and had sent reinforcements after the Supreme Court ruling, well before 30 July.

Conflicting accounts of an intelligence message

Questions about what Pérez Triano knew before the crossings intensified after the government declassified documents on 9 September. They included communications about online calls for people to enter Ceuta on 30 July, potentially by land and sea.

According to the declassified material, Pérez Triano’s then chief of staff, Gonzalo Sanz, received a message on 29 July concerning information gathered by Spain’s intelligence service, the CNI. The second report says the message referred to calls circulating on social media and in Moroccan groups to cross the border by climbing the fence or swimming around the Tarajal breakwater.

Pérez Triano has denied being told about that information. Sanz maintained that he had kept the delegate informed and resigned earlier this month, citing their conflicting accounts. Pérez Triano’s departure makes him the second official to leave his post amid scrutiny of the crisis.

The central government has argued that the communication to Sanz did not amount to a clear warning of a mass crossing. It said a warning of that gravity should not have been conveyed through an ‘ambiguous WhatsApp message’ to a ‘low-ranking official’. The disagreement over the message remains central to questions about who knew what, and when. ALSO READ: Spain’s police chief says Ceuta report does not attribute ‘planning or execution’ of migrant crisis to Morocco.

Court inquiry and political reaction

National High Court judge María Tardón is investigating the events after a court in Ceuta transferred the case to her. ALSO READ: Spanish court to investigate deadly Ceuta migrant surge as possible ‘hybrid warfare’ operation. 

Tardón is due to hear evidence this week from Ceuta’s president, Juan Jesús Vivas, on Wednesday, and Sanz on Thursday.

The right-wing opposition People’s Party (PP) called the resignation a ‘firebreak to protect’ Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and said he must ‘face up to it and accept the consequences’. Its Senate spokesperson, Alicia García, demanded to know to whom Pérez Triano had passed warnings about a possible mass entry and what response he received. ‘Sánchez cannot hide behind a change of personnel,’ she wrote on X. ALSO READ: Thousands march in Madrid over Ceuta crisis, demanding early election and migrant returns.