On a Friday night on Lisboa Street in Ceuta, Spain, three migrant brothers sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl. She is one of at least 15 rape victims the Spanish Civil Guard has confirmed since the end of July — since 72,000 Moroccan migrants poured across the border into a city of 84,000 people.
Women are now fleeing the city where they were born.
Ceuta is a Spanish autonomous enclave on the northern coast of Africa, separated from mainland Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar. At the end of July, roughly 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco through the Castillejos border area in what can only be described as an invasion — not of soldiers, but of young men with nowhere to go and nothing to lose. Spain's Civil Guard, National Police, and military deployed approximately 1,500 agents. It wasn't enough. Between 2,500 and 8,000 migrants remain in the enclave, depending on which estimate you trust, and the Civil Guard has identified roughly 2,168 unaccompanied minors among them.
The first sexual assaults were reported on July 30. They haven't stopped. Spain's El Mundo newspaper and the television network Cuatro have reported on at least 15 rapes — including five underage girls and one underage boy. Beaches have been converted into tent camps. Public spaces are, according to residents, covered in trash and human waste. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Schools have been deemed unsafe by local officials.
A resident named Yoli told Spanish media, "What we are going through is very hard and it is very hard to hear journalists justify this Government, justify everything. We can't take it anymore, we feel humiliated, trampled."
She's not alone.
"Why do I have to leave my city, the city where my mother gave birth to me, where I was raised, and where I want to raise my children?" another resident asked.
A 29-year-old woman said, "I need someone to walk me to my front door at 29 years old. I never thought I would have to live through this situation we're facing — never."
One parent put it more bluntly: "My 16-year-old daughter has to go everywhere with her father or with me because the migrants devour her."
These aren't anonymous internet complaints. These are women describing life in a European city in 2026. Women who can't walk to their own front doors. Parents who can't take their kids to the beach. Families sending their children to mainland Spain because the city they were born in is no longer safe.
And where is Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez? On vacation. Spain's Socialist Party leader remained on holiday while Ceuta imploded. The EU convened an emergency interior ministers meeting in early August. Sánchez couldn't be bothered. The People's Party — Spain's main opposition — has demanded action, but the ruling Socialists have treated this the way ruling Socialists always treat migration crises: by waiting for the news cycle to move on.
The minors who remain in Ceuta have been issued identification bracelets. They cannot be legally returned to Morocco. Health services are now reporting tuberculosis transmission among the population. Another resident told reporters, "We can't take our kids to the beach. They are occupied. Full of shacks, people throwing food, full of clothes, feces, urine."
There's a pattern here, and it isn't limited to Spain. It's the same pattern that played out in Rotherham, in Cologne, in Malmö — mass migration followed by a spike in sexual violence, followed by a government that treats the victims as less important than the optics. The authorities who let 72,000 people walk across a border are the same authorities now asking 84,000 residents to be patient.
"We feel abandoned, and we are Spanish citizens," one resident said.
Seventy-two thousand people entered a city that couldn't absorb them. Fifteen women and children have been raped. The prime minister is on vacation. And the women of Ceuta are solving the problem the only way left available to them — by leaving.
