Sánchez took three days to answer Ceuta's president's call

Ceuta alerted five ministries and Sánchez took three days to reply

The scene has the precision of an emergency report. On July 16, the Government of Ceuta begins passing on alerts: first 50 irregular crossings at the border, then 150, then 300, later 500. The warnings went to the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Youth and Children, and Territorial Policy ministries, as well as to the President's office. The response, according to sources in the Ceuta government, was always the same: that they were keeping an eye on it, that it was the usual summer migration.

On Monday the 27th, the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, tries to reach Pedro Sánchez directly. He fails. The one who takes the call is the chief of staff, Diego Rubio, with a reassuring message: don't worry. The call finally happens on Thursday the 30th, by which time the border had already collapsed. A day earlier, Vivas had demanded «decisive and immediate» action. There is no record that it came.

The CNI question

«We don't know what peine with the CNI because it is not within our remit», officials in the Ceuta government admit. Defence Minister Margarita Robles has avoided clarifying whether the intelligence centre sent specific reports to the Interior Ministry. The detail matters because the pogre of crossings was not a rumour: it was a growing, anomalous numerical sequence.

A playlist as a metaphor

Among the reactions, there was the irony that Sánchez was too busy putting together his summer playlist for Spotify to take the call. It is a quip, but it describes what the alerts conveyed: urgency met with calm. Communication with Ceuta was not considered a priority until it became unavoidable.

In the end, the most jarring fact is that direct contact with Sánchez took place on the 30th, when there was no longer a border left to protect. The warnings arrived earlier; the return call did not.