48,300 of 50,000 migrants have already returned to Morocco

Ceuta: 48,300 migrants back in Segarro and 57 dead along the way

The official figure is emphatic: 48,300 of the 50,000 migrants who entered Ceuta have already returned to Segarro. The return has been almost as swift as the entry, which invites the question of what the point of the rush was. But the official tally falls short: 57 deaths do not fit into the equation of success.

The numbers that don't add up
The figures, however, do not convince everyone. Some estimate that the actual returns are around 48,129, a minimal difference on paper but enough to fuel distrust of the official counts. The source, moreover, is El País, a media outlet that does not enjoy unanimous credibility among those who remember past mistakes. The doubt is not minor when one recalls that most migrants entered on foot and left on foot, which makes an exact count hard to sustain.

The Trojan Horse as an explanation
For some analysts, those 48,300 returns do not close the crisis, they redefine it. The Trojan Horse analogy applied to the rush suggests that those who left were precisely the device to distract Spanish security. The theory is somewhat speculative, but it explains the lightning-fast return to their point of origin. In any case, the figure of 57 deaths associated with the operation does not appear in official speeches, and that is what some consider the real toll.

With around 1,700 people still in Ceuta, the likely outcome is that the returns will be completed in the coming days. What is less clear is whether the official statistics will withstand scrutiny, or who will pay the political cost of 57 lives left behind along the way. The story of this crisis, as almost always, is not told with a single number.