Spain will impose temporary border checks on visitors from Italy starting Saturday at midnight through 7 September, retaliating after Italy imposed its own checks on arrivals from Spain following a mass crossing of roughly 72,000 people from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on 30-31 July. Spain says 70,000 of those have since returned to Morocco, though Moroccan rights groups dispute the figure and say at least 141 people died in the episode.
Italy's government, led by Giorgia Meloni, says it will not lift its checks before 15 August, citing fears of a fresh wave of arrivals in Ceuta; Spain calls the measure discriminatory and a threat to European unity. Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares had given Italy an ultimatum to drop the checks by Sunday or face countermeasures, which Rome rejected as an imposition on its sovereignty.
Italy, which shares no land border with Spain, has applied its checks at maritime and air entry points for non-EU nationals. Hundreds of unaccompanied children remain in Ceuta in what the article describes as dire conditions with little food, water or shelter.
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