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India’s gen Z have discovered the power of collective action | Letters

A crucial point that your editorial on India’s gen Z protests (28 July) missed out was that the protests the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) launched in Delhi, hunger strikes and all, were not just supported by young, restless or unemployed people. It was wholeheartedly supported by their parents and grandparents, the old and the middle-aged, even well-off young adults with good jobs and little children. And this was not just in Delhi, but across the country in the huge metropolises of Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru, as well as smaller towns. And it was all peaceful, for which credit goes to the ethos of the protests and the CJP. All of this was suppressed in the mainstream media, print and TV, and even distorted to suggest that it was violent in parts. This reflects not just the overwhelming angst and fear of young graduates facing poor prospects, but the significant grievances of a people who are seeing and experiencing their democracy fading away. Bhaskar Mani Bengaluru, India • Your editorial captures an important truth: movements that begin with a single grievance often evolve into broader demands for justice, accountability and democratic reform. India’s gen Z protests are not simply about leaked exam papers; they reflect a generation’s frustration with institutions that have failed to protect merit and opportunity. I could not help thinking about Pakistan. Here, too, students, jobseekers and marginalised communities have long expressed concerns about governance and access to justice. Yet these struggles rarely transform into sustained, nationwide civic movements. Local protests often remain isolated and receive limited attention or fail to generate the solidarity required for lasting institutional reform. Whether in India or Pakistan, young people deserve institutions they can trust, exams they can believe in and public systems that reward merit rather than connections. The significance of India’s movement lies not only in political consequences but in the emergence of a generation that has discovered the power of peaceful collective action. Its long-term impact will depend on whether that energy strengthens democratic institutions rather than deepening divisions. Nand Lal Rathore Chachro, Sindh province, Pakistan • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Italy says it’s temporarily suspending EU Schengen arrangement with Spain after 60,000 migrants reach Ceuta – as it happened

Just as we closed the blog, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has confirmed the move to suspend the free movement with on air and sea borders with Spain. She said it was “an extraordinary measure, adopted to safeguard national security and prevent possible repercussions for our nation.” In another sign that it may stop short of full border control for all arrivals from Spain (19:19), she said “the measure will be kept in force only for the time necessary, with particular attention to limiting any impact on summer tourist flows.” She added that “Italy is ready to support every European initiative to assist Spanish institutions as needed to restore full control of the Union’s external borders and to address the ongoing situation with determination.” “Defending borders means defending the safety of citizens, combating irregular immigration, and striking at the criminal networks that traffic human beings,” she said.

‘Free up the ganja’: Rastafarians in Kenya fight to decriminalise marijuana

About a dozen people sang along to the pulsing vibrations of drums and a tambourine in a dimly lit room in Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera neighbourhood. For more than an hour they belted out song after song, the lyrics suffused with references to Ethiopia, Jah, Zion, Rastafari and Haile Selassie I. One song went: “No night in a Zion, there is no night there / Hallelujah there is no night there / Rastafari is our light, and we need no other light / Hallelujah there is no night there.” The singers and musicians were members of the House of Nyabinghi, one of the main denominations, or “mansions” of Rastafari, a religion and social movement that recently came under the spotlight in Kenya after a court ruling on 15 July dismissed a petition to decriminalise the use of marijuana for spiritual purposes. Three days later, the House of Nyabinghi – named after and inspired by a legendary east African woman whose name means “mother of abundance” or “she who possesses many things” – met for their weekly communal gatherings, which Rastafarians call a “groundation”. A red, yellow, and green flag and images of Rastafari’s influences such as Haile Selassie I, Bob Marley and the Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey embellished the walls. Sizzles and crackles were often heard as some of those gathered lit marijuana, its scent filling the air. Among those attending was Ras Orudi, who came to Rastafari after being inspired by Jamaican reggae artists such as Peter Tosh while at secondary school in the mid 2000s. “Rastafarians are not rejecting the system,” said the 38-year-old, who serves as a herbalist. “They are trying to integrate into the system while defending their rights.” Also in the room was Ras Ndeto, who was inspired by an encounter in the early 1990s in Nairobi with a Rastafarian from Guyana who taught him “livity”, the Rastafari spiritual practice of righteous and natural living centred on a plant-based “ital” diet and the growing of dreadlocks. The 56-year-old said the court’s decision marginalised followers of the religion and added that they would appeal to a higher court. “We still feel that we are a minority group in this country, because even our culture is still looked down upon,” said Ndeto, who holds the title of prophet and is the spokesperson for the Rastafari Society of Kenya. “We are living like terrorists in our own country.” *** An Afrocentric religion, Rastafari is centred on the beliefs that the former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I is the messiah and God incarnate, and that Black people are oppressed by Babylon – a metaphor for western capitalism and imperialism. The movement emerged in the 1930s within marginalised Afro-Jamaican communities after Protestant leaders declared that the crowning of Haile Selassie I as emperor was the fulfilment of a biblical prophecy. The movement is named after his pre-coronation name, Ras Tafari Makonnen. The religion was embraced around the world partly due to the influence of Rastafari-inspired reggae music from artistes such as Bob Marley and the Wailers, Burning Spear and Culture. Ras Dimo, who holds the title of priest and often leads prayers in Kibera, became enlightened about Rastafari just before finishing secondary school, partly through reading books examining the connection between Black people and the Bible. “I was inspired to know that Black people are not cursed as imperialists tried to make us think,” the 43-year-old said. “We are living in a time when many people are blinded.” Like many other Rastafarians in Kenya, Dimo was born into a Christian family and later became Rastafari. They adopt the title Ras, which means “head” or “chief” in Amharic, the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia. The population of Rastafarians in Kenya is unknown. In 2019, a court recognised Rastafari as a legally protected religion in a landmark ruling after a pupil alleged discrimination when her school expelled her due to her dreadlocks. Marijuana, a product of the Cannabis sativa plant, is a sacrament in the faith, and Rastafarians believe consuming it puts them in a meditative state that helps them connect more deeply with the divine. Followers in different parts of the world are pushing for its decriminalisation. In 2023, the islands of Antigua and Barbuda approved allowing Rastafarians to grow cannabis and smoke marijuana. In 2021 the Rastafari Society of Kenya filed a court petition seeking the exemption of Rastafarians from arrest and prosecution for cultivating, possessing and using the plant as a sacrament, or a requirement that the government create a legal framework for the practice. The society said the law violated their rights to freedoms including of religion and equality. The court dismissed the petition on 15 July, saying the society had failed to prove that the law unconstitutionally violated Rastafarians’ rights, among other reasons. Ras Masinde, another follower in Kibera, became curious about Rastafari as a child after encountering a man with dreadlocks. He became rebellious, refusing to cut his hair, and after finishing secondary school in the 1990s, started growing dreadlocks and reading about the Rastafari religion, before eventually finding a community. “We as Rastafarians are urging Black people to go back to their roots and culture,” said the 50-year-old. “We fyah bun (denounce or condemn) colonialism and imperialism, and we say that every man and woman and child … is equal before the eyes of the almighty the creator.” He issued a rallying call: “Free up the herb. Free up the ganja seed.”

Callas, Beethoven, bee-eaters or storks: competition seeks to redesign euro notes

Is Europe best represented by the bold intellect of Marie Curie, the sprawling imagination of Miguel de Cervantes and the intense musical genius of Ludwig van Beethoven? Or by a migrating stork and a bee-eater, swooping across borderless plains and enjoying freedom of movement across European countries? The quest to settle this issue has engaged a surprising number of people across the continent, after more than 6 million people voted in a survey within just a week of its launch to determine whether the newly redesigned euro bank notes should depict either cultural figures or birds and waterways. The 10 proposals for a full redesign – the first since the single currency’s paper money entered circulation in 2002 – were unveiled by the chair of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, last week. They include five proposals on the culture theme and five on the wildlife theme. Each offers a different graphic interpretation on colours and motifs for the €5, €10, €20, €50, €100 and €200 notes that were determined by the ECB in advance. Europe’s cultural life is represented on the front of the notes by the American-Greek soprano Maria Callas; the German composer Beethoven; the Polish-French scientist Curie; Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote; the Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci; and the Austrian pacifist and women’s liberation leader Bertha von Suttner, with public scenes of artistic and intellectual activity on the reverse. The birds selected for the wildlife-themed notes are the wallcreeper, the kingfisher, the bee-eater, the white stork, the avocet and the northern gannet, over different landscapes typical of the continent. Feedback from the survey on the ECB’s website, which closes on 21 September, will feed into but not solely determine which design the central bank chooses as a winner at the end of 2026. A spokesperson said the outcome of a second, quantitative survey and the verdict of a jury of designers would also have a bearing on its choice. A combination of the two themes is not expected. The new notes, which will continue to be printed on paper rather than polymer as in some countries such as the UK, will not come into circulation until 2030 or 2031. The 10 shortlisted designs, picked from 1,241 applications to an open call in 2025, are all by creatives who don’t usually design bank notes, and some look radically different from paper money anywhere else around the globe. A Dutch book designer, Joost Grootens, has cropped the images of cultural figures tightly around their eyes, accentuating their vision rather than their iconic status, while Jan Robert Dünnwelle, a German illustrator, has rendered the same personalities in the free-flowing, sketchy style of a graphic novel. In the French artist Isabelle Daëron’s proposals, the birds are flying across a vertical layout rather than the more conventional horizontal one, as are those of Ville Tietäväinen, a Finnish graphic designer who has depicted the bird’s journeys in sequence, progressively moving from the mountains to the sea. Philippe Geoffroy, the head of section for new banknotes at the ECB, said: “The feedback from the public has been very clear. They want money that feels European.” In Britain, the Bank of England drew some ire earlier this year when it announced that redesigned notes would depict wildlife instead of historical figures such as Winston Churchill or William Shakespeare. To some commentators, the “apolitical” animal motifs epitomised the struggle to identify shared cultural rallying points in politically polarising times. The new euro notes seem to take a step in the opposite direction. Until now, euro banknotes have deliberately depicted “neutral” motifs in order to avoid offending individual member nations: imaginary bridges, doorways and windows that exemplify historic architectural styles without depicting specific real-life European buildings or places. New notes including the face of the mythological princess Europa in the watermark and the hologram stripe were introduced in 2013 without changing the overall design. Yet while the current redesign is similarly motivated by the need for new security features, the EU is also not letting an opportunity for identity-building go to waste. “The main reason behind the re-design is to stay well ahead of counterfeiting,” Geoffroy said. “But along the way we want to increase identification with the single currency and make it more graphically meaningful. We want to move away from neutrality.” The lineup of cultural icons is not only finely balanced to represent different corners of the eurozone (albeit with a glaring hole in the Baltics). It also showcases artists and thinkers who cannot be claimed by just one country, either because their work transcended borders or because of their migratory biography. Callas was born in New York but her career flourished in Greece and Italy. The career of Curie, who discovered radium and polonium with her husband, Pierre, spanned Warsaw and Paris. Von Suttner spent time in Prague, Tbilisi and Vienna. While none of the birds that would be depicted on the wildlife notes are exclusively found in Europe, they would be paired on their flipside with pictures of buildings that house the EU’s political, legal and financial institutions in Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Frankfurt.

Anti-LGBTQ+ laws are on the rise across west Africa, campaigners warn

A growing number of west African countries are implementing or strengthening anti-LGBTQ+ laws, amid local political pressures and a global pushback against LGBTQ+ rights. In March, Senegal doubled the maximum prison sentence for gay sex to 10 years and criminalised the “promotion” of homosexuality. Niger criminalised “sexual relations with a person of the same sex” in February, the first time same-sex intimacy had been outlawed in the country. Mali and Burkina Faso, which neighbours Niger, also criminalised same-sex relations for the first time in the last two years. All three are ruled by military juntas. In June, Ghana, which already outlaws gay sex, passed a law criminalising LGBTQ+ “activities”. The bill, which hasn’t been signed into law by the president, is the latest iteration of a bill that was first introduced in 2021. “What I see in all of them is a political opportunism,” said Anthony Oluoch of Pan Africa ILGA, a continental LGBT+ rights campaign group. In some countries, he said, the new or harsher laws had been backed by religious groups and campaigns for “family values”, while in Burkina Faso, whose population is predominantly Muslim, the law was framed as boosting its sovereignty in opposition to the west. “Underneath that all, there’s a lot of transnational reinforcement,” Oluoch added. LGBTQ+ people “are the easiest scapegoats to maintain their power”, said an activist in Burkina Faso, who could not be named for her security. The impact on the community, even before the law was implemented, has been devastating, activists said. Thirteen transgender women were detained without trial from June to November last year, a HIV worker said, with the women reporting they had been beaten by a military unit that imprisoned them. After the law was passed, there have been at least two sets of convictions. Police are entrapping LGBTQ+ people on social media and demanding they denounce other community members, said the HIV worker, who fled the country in May after he was named by someone who had been arrested. Despite military president Ibrahim Traoré’s anti-western rhetoric, Burkina Faso has also caught the eye of anti-LGBTQ+ campaigners that include conservative, western Christian groups. The African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty, a forum that many argue has influenced anti-LGBTQ+ laws on the continent, will be held in Burkina Faso and then Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) next year, it was announced this year. The first three conferences were held annually in Uganda, in east Africa, beginning in 2023. Uganda imposed the death penalty for some same-sex sexual acts that year. According to US-based international reproductive rights organisation Ipas, the annual gatherings are supported by Family Watch International (FWI), an Arizona-based Christian campaign group that opposes abortion and comprehensive sex education (CSE). Also in attendance has been Dutch-founded lobby group Christian Council International, which promotes similar views. At this year’s conference, hosted by Ghana’s parliament in June, the draft African Charter on Family Sovereignty and Values treaty was drawn up. It condemns abortion and CSE, states that gender is either male or female, and asserts that parental rights supersede children’s. A draft copy was published on FWI’s website. The anti-LGBTQ+ bill passed by Ghana’s parliament is a “very effective political tool”, supported by powerful religious organisations in the country, said Amanda Odoi, a researcher at the University of Cape Coast. Nonetheless, Odoi added: “These international actors were very key in empowering, supporting, funding, financing and giving voice to the anti-LGBT campaign.” She noted the Ghana bill’s similarity to Uganda’s law, as well as its “alphabet soup” – the bill uses the acronym “LGBTTQAP+” – that includes words like “questioning” not commonly used in Ghana. Bringing this year’s African parliamentary conference to Ghana was a deliberate decision due to the country’s influence on the continent, said Ebenezer Peegah, executive director of Rightify Ghana, an NGO that supports LGBTQ+ people. “Ghana has a lot of credentials that Uganda does not have … some clout that other countries in Africa do not have,” said Peegah, listing Ghana’s stable democracy, free and fair elections and relative press freedom. Across west Africa, LGBTQ+ people are suffering the consequences of the new and harsher laws. In Senegal, the law is also hindering HIV prevention for men who have sex with men and transgender women, who have higher rates of HIV prevalence, as well as lawyers representing LGBTQ+ people, said Marame Kane, a French-Senegalese activist based in Paris. About 100 Senegalese people fled to the Gambia this year, although most had to return to Senegal as they had no money, according to a Gambian HIV worker. Same-sex relations are already punishable with up to life in prison in the Gambia, while transgender women are criminalised by a cross-dressing ban. However, the HIV worker worried that the government could strengthen the laws, making HIV services even harder to provide. The crackdown in Senegal had also increased homophobia in the Gambia, he said, adding, “Gambia and Senegal share the same culture, the same religion, literally everything.”

Ukraine war briefing: Strikes on three Russian oil refineries and sanctioned ship

Ukrainian drones struck three oil refineries in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday. The refineries “process millions of tonnes of oil each year” and are located nearly 1,600km (994 miles) from Ukraine, Ukraine’s president said. The Russian online news outlet Astra reported Saturday that a Ukrainian drone set on fire an oil refinery in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan. A sanctioned Russian container ship, the Yanina, sank in the Black Sea after being hit by Ukrainian drones, Zelenskyy said, listing the ship as among “facilities that sustain the war effort”. Russia’s state nuclear energy company, Rosatom, whose shipping subsidiary FESCO operates the vessel, claimed the ship was carrying “civilian goods” such as frozen food and construction materials. The ⁠International Atomic Energy ⁠Agency (IAEA) ⁠said on Saturday that Ukraine’s ⁠Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant ⁠lost off-site ‌power ‌for nearly two hours – the 23rd ‌time it has happened since the full-scale Russian invasion. The plant is illegally occupied by Russia and not operating, but needs power supplied from outside to power cooling systems that maintain the safety of its nuclear materials. Ukraine’s campaign to cut off illegally occupied Crimea from Russia has led to people having to queue in the streets for hot meals due to power cuts, Reuters reports. It caught up with residents waiting in the town of Massandra for food being cooked in huge pots. Standing beside boiling vats of buckwheat, later to be added to plates of reheated tinned beef, Massandra town administration head Oksana Madyud said her workers were serving roughly 200 people per day, “as under the current circumstances not everyone has the means to cook hot food on electric hobs”. Ukraine says it is “bringing the war back home to ‌Russia” by striking deep inside the country, as well as hitting territory the invader controls and has sought to populate with Russian immigrants. One local woman, Marina, said a bad leg made the climb down from her 10th-floor apartment difficult, but the lack of electricity had sent her hunting for a gas cooker and ⁠some cylinders. Another older resident, Alexandra, said she had been lured down by the smell of the ‌lunch after going without electricity for 10 days. “They turned it back on today, at 4 o’clock” in the afternoon, but she wasn’t sure the lights would still be on when she returned home, she added. Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Saturday that its embassy in Kyiv was damaged when Russian missiles struck nearby. The Lithuanian foreign ministry said there were no injuries but embassy windows broke, solar collectors were damaged and the yard was scattered with debris. The minister, Kestutis Budrys, said: “Today we will summon the Russian embassy representative to protest. We understand this won’t stop this madness and ⁠aggression against Ukraine. What might stop it is continued support to Ukraine, raising its resilience and piling ‌pressure on Russia through sanctions so it finally sits at the negotiation table.” Recovery efforts continued in Kyiv after a Russian missile and drone barrage killed at least nine people and wounded 33 civilians over Friday night and into Saturday. A five-story residential building in the city’s Solomianskyi district was damaged and a fire broke out. Rescue workers evacuated 35 people from the upper floors of the building and two people died, with eight reported injured, including two children, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. In the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv, seven people were killed and another 14 injured after the attack caused fires and damage to houses, vehicles, an administrative and non-residential building, the emergency services said. Elsewhere, emergency workers extinguished a fire in a non-residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district. There was no additional information about earlier reports by the district mayor that people were trapped in another residential building. A Russian airstrike killed one person and wounded five more in the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, local officials said on Saturday. Zelenskyy posted a further plea for Patriot missiles. “Every package of ballistic missile interceptors saves the lives of our people. And every night without them results in more casualties.” Due to the air defence shortages, Ukraine was only able to shoot down one out of the 27 ballistic missiles in Friday night’s barrage, Zelenskyy said.

Tourist plane crashes during flight over Peru’s Nazca Lines, killing 13

Police in Peru report that 13 people, among them foreign tourists, have been killed in a plane crash in southern Peru, near the Nazca Lines. Local authorities in Nazca confirmed that 11 tourists and two pilots died when the Cessna Grand Caravan crashed in Pueblo Viejo, approximately 4 miles (6km) from the city of Nazca and roughly 12km from the Nazca Lines site. The passengers were identified as seven Italians, two Germans – believed to be a couple – and two Spanish people. The pilot and copilot were named as Americo Salazar Cuellar and Irenka Del Carpio respectively. The plane had departed the nearby city of Pisco at about 1pm local time (7pm BST) to fly over the Nazca Lines, but minutes later lost contact with the control tower and crashed at 1.20pm, police reported. The cause of the crash is as yet unknown, and the local authorities have launched an investigation. “We have information that 11 passengers and two crew members have died,” Police Major Jorge Andrade told reporters at the crash site. “Given the severity of the accident, there are no survivors. We have recovered four bodies so far,” Andrade added. The Guardian has seen video footage which showed firefighters and police working amid the smouldering wreckage of the plane in the desert. Images appeared to show bodies on the sand. This deadly plane crash is far from the first at the Unesco world heritage site, which attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Several operators compete to offer overflights of the iconic lines which date to AD200-700, amid serious concerns about the safety and maintenance of the aircraft. In 2022, a small plane crash killed seven people, including two Chileans and three Dutch nationals. In October 2010, four British tourists and two Peruvian crew members were killed when a small plane operated by AirNasca crashed after flying over the lines. Earlier in the same year, three Chileans and four Peruvians died when a Cessna 206 crashed. In April 2008, five French tourists were killed in another crash, but the pilot survived. “The investigation of the accident and the oversight of aviation operations are the responsibility of the competent authorities, who will determine the causes and assign liability in accordance with the law,” the municipality of Nazca said in a statement on Saturday. Peru’s tourism ministry expressed “deep sorrow over the tragic deaths of tourists and crew members” in a statement. The mysterious etchings in the desert, which include vast hummingbird, monkey and whale figures, are only fully visible from the air.

EU to hold urgent meeting of interior ministers on Tuesday over Ceuta crisis

The EU is to hold an urgent meeting of interior ministers on Tuesday amid continued divisions in the bloc over the arrival of more than 50,000 migrants in the Spanish territory of Ceuta in north Africa. The decision was taken by officials representing EU member states and Frontex border agency experts at what was described as a “sobering” meeting on Saturday. Spain confirmed at least 67 people had died in the attempted crossing. Some drowned, while others were crushed as they tried to cross a breakwater barrier. The decision to call a summit of ministers was unanimous as EU leaders seek to heal divisions in the bloc and restore a unified approach to migration. Spain said migrant crossings into Ceuta had stopped overnight, as police began installing a 500-metre (1,640ft) floating barrier off its border ‌with Morocco. Andy Burnham, the British prime minister, said on Saturday: “I have been in touch with the Spanish prime minister and [we are] providing what help we can.” Italy and Denmark, with some support from Poland and Sweden, used the meeting on Saturday to criticise Spain for what had happened. In a furious letter on Saturday, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez hit out against “fake news” and “disinformation”, pointing out that “virtually all” migrants had been returned to Morocco after the army intervened on Friday, “preventing any unauthorised onward movement towards continental Europe”. It is understood suspected Russian attempts to spread disinformation to sow dissent within the EU was also discussed at the meeting on Saturday. There is frustration in Spain that previous incidents of this scale, such as mass arrival of migrants on the border of Belarus and Poland or Russia and Finland, were labelled as “hybrid attacks” , and met with solidarity from the rest of the EU. Although more than 48,000 people had voluntarily returned to Morocco by 6pm on Friday, the influx triggered a political crisis for the Madrid government and led some fellow EU countries to call for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen free-movement zone. Juan Jesús Vivas, the president of Ceuta, said that while many people had returned to Morocco, not all those who had crossed into the city had left. “We’re not back to normal because there are several thousand people who need to be returned, and there is still an atmosphere marked by unease and concern,” he said. He also called for “all the security measures deployed” in Ceuta to remain in place to guarantee the safety of the population. Sánchez asked for the meeting after what appeared to be a breakdown of EU unity on external border policy, with Italy attacking Spain. Italy announced on Friday evening that it would suspend its Schengen arrangements with Spain for a month, even though Ceuta – and Spain’s other north African territory, Melilla – are subject to special Schengen rules that prevent onward movement within the zone. Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, blamed the situation in Ceuta on the Sánchez government’s decision to offer a now-closed scheme to regularise the status of more than 1 million undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. He said the programme had incentivised human trafficking and was “profoundly wrong”. Sánchez was forthright in a letter sent to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Council president, António Costa, and Micheál Martin, the prime minister of Ireland, which holds the EU presidency. Sánchez said that while most EU countries had expressed support and solidarity over events in Ceuta, others had chosen to attack Spain. “Such an attitude – driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest – is … contrary to European law, humanitarian law and the principles of solidarity that bind us together,” he said. In a pointed rebuke to Italy, he noted that Spain was “according to Frontex, one of the least porous external borders of the European Union, with a number of irregular entries that is half that recorded, for example, in Italy in recent years (2021–26)”. Senior EU officials met on Saturday in a “political crisis response team” convened by Ireland’s presidency. Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin, said on Saturday that, as the holders of the EU presidency, “Ireland will convene a meeting on Tuesday of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council, chaired by Jim O’Callaghan [justice minister], to discuss developments in Ceuta. “We remain in close contact with all member states and the institutions and continue to monitor the situation,” he said in a social media post. O’Callaghan, who is leading the meetings on behalf of the EU, said he had been in touch with Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, to express his solidarity and support. In remarks that appeared to respond to Sánchez’s criticisms, von der Leyen said she welcomed his suggestion of a video conference “to take stock of what has happened”, adding: “Fighting illegal migration requires solidarity and a united European response.” France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said his country would not be seeking Spain’s suspension from Schengen rules. “It’s absolutely not on the table,” he said on Saturday. “We have great cooperation with Spain.” Many of the remaining people who crossed into Ceuta returned to Morocco on Saturday morning amid a reinforced Spanish police and military presence. “We hope to go to Europe to work and earn a living – that’s it,” Souleil Boyan, a 19-year-old from Senegal, told Agence France-Presse outside a migrant centre in Ceuta where dozens of other people from sub-Saharan Africa were waiting for officials. “We all know that in Africa there isn’t much opportunity,” he added. The Spanish government said in a statement on Saturday that the situation in Ceuta remained calm and quiet. It said containment barriers were being installed at the Tarajal beach breakwater, including a 500-metre-long inflatable barrier and a line of anchored buoys. This week’s mass crossing dwarfs the last similar event in May 2021, when Morocco loosened its border controls, allowing about 10,000 people to enter the territory over two days. That crossing came amid heightened tensions between Madrid and Rabat over Spain’s decision to allow the leader of the Western Sahara independence movement, the Polisario Front, to be treated for Covid-19 in Spain. Morocco and the Polisario Front both lay claim to Western Sahara, which was under Spanish rule until 1975, when colonial authorities handed the territory to Morocco and Mauritania. That diplomatic crisis ended in 2022 when Madrid reversed its longstanding policy of neutrality and backed Morocco’s plan for Western Sahara, a move that caused a rift between Spain and Algeria, which had supported the Polisario group. Sánchez visited Algiers on 20 July – the first visit by a Spanish head of government in four years – marking a thaw in relations with Algeria. The Spanish government has attributed the latest influx to “human-trafficking mafias” that have taken advantage of a decision by Spain’s supreme court, which recently ruled that those intercepted at sea while trying to enter Ceuta or Melilla could not be summarily returned under special rules. But some migration experts have expressed doubts about that explanation. Mauricio Valiente, the director general of the Spanish Refugee Aid Commission, said the route into Ceuta was very different from the Atlantic route from Africa to the Canary Islands, which is often operated by people smugglers. “Unlike what happens in the Canary Islands, these aren’t people who have to get into a small boat,” he told elDiario.es. “This is a matter of being just metres from a land border, jumping into the sea and trying to get around a breakwater, which makes it much easier to do, even with all the risks.” Valiente said there had been a steady increase in arrivals to Ceuta this year, even before the supreme court ruling. “The causes are complex, and there are surely many reasons,” he said. “But to simplify it by referencing the court ruling or organised crime – to say there’s a direct cause-and-effect relationship – is completely unfounded.” Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, visited Ceuta on Saturday and said he had spoken to migrants there. “I have spoken to a number of them who made it quite clear they intend to make it to Britain,” he said.