The Civil Guard begins the placement of a new maritime barrier on the south breakwater of Melilla after the massive entry of migrants into Ceuta

The Civil Guard has begun by placing a new maritime barrier on the south breakwater of Melilla, similar to the one placed on the El Tarajal breakwater in Ceuta after the massive entry of migrants by swimming this July from Morocco, to "reinforce control" at the border by sea.

Sources from the Civil Guard Command in Melilla have indicated that the implementation of the new maritime infrastructure "requires several phases of placement and anchoring," so they have not detailed "any estimate of the time it will take to place it." For this reason, the Armed Institute also reminds that, for security reasons, the area remains restricted to access, both by vehicle and on foot.

Before this, the Ministry of Interior had already included Melilla in the installation of maritime barriers, similar to those in Ceuta, with the aim of applying border rejections to migrants who try to access Spain by swimming after overcoming these containment elements. This was stated in Instruction 9/2026 of the Secretary of State for Security, signed on August 1, which establishes the legal and operational framework for installing these barriers in the waters of the two autonomous cities and sets the procedure for applying border rejections provided for in the Immigration Law.

Said document states that the measure responds to the recent Supreme Court ruling, which concluded that 'hot' returns cannot be applied generally to those who irregularly enter the country, but only to those who try to enter Spain by overcoming established border containment elements. However, the high court has added that the Immigration Law does not limit these elements exclusively to land fences, so their location at sea would also allow applying border rejection to those who cross them.

Finally, the Interior has indicated that this instruction aims to provide "the necessary legal certainty" to the State Security Forces and Corps, to make effective the border rejection of migrants detected on the maritime line of Ceuta and Melilla when they try to overcome these devices.