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The government in Madrid has rejected allegations that it ignored warnings from the CNI intelligence service about a mass arrival of tens of thousands of migrants in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in North Africa.<\/p>\n
It said on Monday that no intelligence reports had been received warning of a migration crisis on this scale.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, efforts to accommodate and repatriate the remaining migrants, as well as the search for further fatalities, are continuing in Ceuta. According to the Ministry of the Interior in Madrid, 72 bodies have been recovered so far.<\/p>\n
Miguel Tellado, spokesman for the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP), said it was difficult to imagine that the CNI had known nothing of the impending ‘human wave’.<\/p>\n
However, government spokeswoman Elma Saiz insisted that “No one had anticipated such an unprecedented event.”<\/p>\n
Last week tens of thousands had entered Ceuta irregularly from Morocco – most by swimming, others by climbing over the six-metre-high border fence. The exact figure remains unclear.<\/p>\n
Regional President Juan Jes\u00fas Vivas has now put the number of arrivals at 80,000, having previously estimated 60,000. Madrid is sticking to its estimate of 50,000. Morocco reported that around 40,000 migrants had attempted to reach Ceuta.<\/p>\n
There are also conflicting figures regarding the number of migrants who lost their lives, mainly off the coast of the exclave in the Strait of Gibraltar. Whilst Madrid continues to cite 72 fatalities, representatives of the conservative regional government state that there are at least 88 bodies.<\/p>\n
The majority of the migrants have now returned to Morocco. The central government puts the number of remaining migrants at around 2,500 and states that the repatriation operations are not yet complete.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n