Pedro Sánchez decries ‘violation of territorial integrity’ as other EU countries criticise Madrid over incident Europe live – latest updates At least 43 people have died trying to…

Pedro Sánchez decries ‘violation of territorial integrity’ as other EU countries criticise Madrid over incident At least 43 people have died trying to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta after as many as 50,000 migrants entered the tiny territory from Morocco in a matter of hours, triggering a political crisis for the Madrid government and unleashing a barrage of criticism from other EU countries. The large influx of people arriving in Ceuta by swimming across from neighbouring Morocco or scaling the border fence has caught the city of 85,000 off guard and resulted in what one local police association called a “serious humanitarian crisis”. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who arrived in Ceuta on Friday, described the influx as “a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity” and said he would use all the state resources at his disposal to guarantee the safety of the people of Ceuta. He attributed the mass crossing to “human trafficking mafias” that had taken advantage of a decision by Spain’s supreme court, which recently ruled that those intercepted at sea while trying to enter Ceuta, or Spain’s other north African enclave of Melilla, could not be summarily returned under special rules. Sánchez said: “That has spread like wildfire during these last few hours through the networks of mafias that traffic in human beings and has produced an avalanche of the characteristics and dimension that we experienced yesterday.” Sánchez, who is under pressure from political opponents and other European countries to come up with a swift and comprehensive response, said a temporary reception centre would be established to facilitate the documentation, registration, triage and “expedited” expulsion of people with no legal claim to be in Spain. He also said the government would erect a visible barrier – a line of buoys – near the breakwater at Ceuta’s Tarajal beach to make it clear where the border was, to legally comply with the court’s ruling.