What we don't know

WHETHER THE SECOND CROSSING WAS AN ATTEMPT OR A CROWD, which is the thread this box has carried since 8 August and which is now half-answered rather than open. The posts named 15 August. On 15 August, per Moroccan security sources and an interior-ministry source cited by Spanish media, EFE and Reuters and carried by two publishers, 111 people were detained in and around Fnideq about three kilometres from the border — 109 of them migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and two of them Moroccan citizens, on the fuller of the two accounts — and police in riot gear used tear gas on groups gathered on the hills. NOBODY WE HAVE WALKED REPORTS ANYONE REACHING THE ENCLAVE, which is an absence in two accounts rather than a certainty, and we say which. What that leaves unknown is nearly everything underneath it: whether 111 is the whole of who came or only those caught, what has happened to them since, whether any will be prosecuted under the warning Rabat issued this week against organisers and participants, whether the online calls represented organisation or noise, and what Meta actually removed from the accounts BBC Arabic and its social media investigations correspondent documented. AND ONE THING WE CANNOT ASSESS AT ALL, because a state removed the people who would have: EFE and the Spanish state broadcaster TVE say Morocco's interior ministry ordered their journalists to leave Fnideq immediately, without explanation. Nothing we walked says how many reporters that covered, whether it still stands, or what happened on those hills after they went. We also do not know whether the reinforcement holds: a metal fence, a floating barrier, army officers, navy speedboats, drones and a Spanish deployment given as more than 1,500 officers on one chain and as more than 1,600 after 500 mainland reinforcements on the other are a posture, not a policy, and nothing says how long any of it stays. THE CHILDREN, still the sharpest open question on this page and still counted four ways that reconcile with nothing. Spain's Youth Minister Sira Rego said on 7 August that at least 1,342 of those remaining in Ceuta are children, hundreds of them unaccompanied; the BBC renders the same statement as 'nearly 1,400 minors'. That sits far above the 'some 800 children' local-media figure of 4 August and far below the 4,860 registered by volunteer groups per El Mundo. Al Jazeera's 12 August report put about 1,000 minors among about 2,000 people still in the territory — a total Spain's own interior minister put at about 5,000 on 13 August, so even the denominator is unsettled — and recorded that the MOROCCAN Interior Ministry has urged Spanish authorities to speed up their return, against Ceuta's own mayor-president saying returning them is 'basically impossible' because it requires their consent. Ceuta's authorities say at least 1,100 children need assistance against a theoretical capacity of 90 places. Rego said transfers to the mainland might be 'only a matter of a few weeks' away; that was an expectation and not a transfer, and nothing we have walked says any child has been moved. Charities warn of abuse and exploitation, and Federación Sur Acoge's Jose Miguel Morales says some children are under 14 and have already been beaten and assaulted — accounts we have not independently verified. An Al Jazeera feature reporting that migrant children are going days without food in Ceuta has sat confirmed on that outlet's index and unopened by anyone here since 10 August, which is this story's largest unpaid debt. THE DEATH TOLL, unreconciled across seven published figures: at least 75 plus 11 from Spain's government, 88 plus at least 11 from Ceuta's authorities, 'more than 80' from Al Jazeera, at least 67 bodies recovered, 'at least 96' in the Guardian's own voice, 100 from Ceuta's mayor-president to the European Parliament — a figure the BBC has since adopted in its own voice — and at least 141 from the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, the only count from a non-governmental body and the highest of them all. Those measure three different things: bodies recovered, a state's figure, and an advocacy organisation's estimate. Nobody has withdrawn a lower count and nobody has published a method. No independent verification has walked to us. The scale of the crossing is likewise counted four ways — about 72,000, 'more than 60,000', 'more than 72,000' and roughly 78,000, the last of which two publishers now use in their own voice — and dated differently across accounts, with one chain placing the deadly attempt on 30 July where this story has carried 30–31 July. WHETHER ITALY'S CONTROLS AND SPAIN'S OUTLAST THEIR MONTH. Italy suspended its Schengen arrangement with Spain, backed by Finland and Denmark, and the Czech Republic called for Spain's membership to be temporarily suspended; Spain answered with border controls on all air and sea travel from Italy, running to 7 September. AND THE POINT THAT UNDERCUTS THE WHOLE ROW HAS ONLY NOW REACHED THIS PAGE: per the BBC, all of it happened 'despite Sánchez noting Ceuta was not part of the Schengen area'. We have not read the Schengen instrument, we do not know whether that reading is contested by Rome or Prague, and neither of them has answered it in anything we have walked. What the checks do at the gate is likewise unresolved — Spanish officials say 5 to 10 percent of passengers are checked at random, a passenger arriving in Madrid told RTVE that everyone on her flight had to show a passport, and Italy exempts EU citizens without anyone explaining how officials distinguish them. MOROCCO'S SEVEN JAILED DRIVERS, and what they were jailed for. Seven taxi drivers were sentenced on 7 August to up to six months in prison and fined $1,070 each for driving people to the border, and the national taxi union says in a statement that 'no official decision was issued imposing restrictions on passenger transport'. We do not know whether they have appealed, whether the restriction the union says never existed has since been published, or whether anyone detained on 15 August faces the same charge — including the two Moroccan citizens among them, about whom nothing further has walked to us. WHY THE CROSSINGS HAPPENED, WHICH REMAINS CONTESTED AT ITS ROOT. The EU's migration commissioner says criminal networks and social-media disinformation are thought to be behind the July influx; Al Jazeera documented named pages and groups plus an intelligence report describing a non-centralised campaign across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, France and the United States; the BBC found nearly 40 Haraga-named Instagram profiles, one of which asked £400 upfront for crossing information. None of that establishes direction or responsibility, and no prosecution for the July crossings has walked to us. Whether Morocco warned Spain or bears responsibility for not stopping it is disputed between an anonymous Moroccan official, a Spanish spokeswoman, Ceuta's mayor-president and an unnamed Moroccan source blaming 'a judge's decision'; nothing establishes Moroccan intent and we do not adjudicate it. Whether Russian disinformation played any part is under investigation by the EU's foreign policy service, which says it is too early to conclude. And whether Spain's 500,000-person regularisation, for which nearly 1.2 million have applied, proceeds in the face of the migration commissioner's public criticism is unknown. Finally, the wider frame is contested and we do not adjudicate it: a far-right network on X has presented footage of Moroccan security personnel near the border as proof of official Moroccan 'consent', casting the crossing as retaliation for Spain's position on Gaza and its refusal to let the US use the Rota and Morón bases against Iran. Those are claims, not established facts, and nothing we walked verifies the retaliation thesis.