Ceuta migrant crisis: the Spanish enclave where the numbers don't add up

Politicians say the overwhelming majority of migrants who crossed into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta have left. The Daily Mail reports the true picture is alarmingly different, with far fewer departures than official claims suggest.

Ceuta sits on Morocco's Mediterranean coast - Spanish territory separated from mainland Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar. The enclave has long been a pressure point for migration into Europe, with periodic surges when Moroccan border enforcement relaxes or fails.

The gap between the official line and the reality on the ground is the story. When governments announce that a crisis has been resolved, the first question is always whether the numbers support the claim or contradict it. The second question is what incentive structure those announcements create - whether declaring success early makes the problem harder to address, because admitting ongoing difficulty after that becomes politically costlier than it was before the announcement.

What to watch: whether independent counts or subsequent reporting establishes the actual figure, and whether the discrepancy between claim and reality carries any consequence for those who made the claim.