Spain’s Federal Police Union (UFP) is warning that police forces in the North African enclave of Ceuta have reached a breaking point, calling the situation an “absolute collapse” driven by a massive influx of migrants and the strain of processing thousands of asylum requests. The union went public with its alarm on Sunday, according to reporting from Breitbart, after one officer assigned to a local immigration office suffered a heart attack over the weekend and was admitted to an intensive care unit.
The UFP attributes the officer’s cardiac episode to what it describes as the “brutal level of stress and pressure” weighing on police in the enclave. The union’s public appeals, made to several Spanish outlets, mark an escalation in its long-running demands for central government intervention.
Officers Working 15-Hour Shifts
Serafín Giraldo, a National Police inspector who heads the UFP, told Antena 3 that the officer who fell ill was stationed at a migration office handling asylum claims. Giraldo said staff there are routinely working from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., and that some officers have been forced into double shifts exceeding 15 hours a day.
That schedule, Giraldo argued, leaves virtually no time for officers to recover between shifts.
“Reinforcements are urgently needed. The system has completely collapsed; the Ceuta Immigration Office has very few resources, both human and material,” Giraldo said, according to Antena 3. He added that both asylum applications and return procedures have “increased in an extraordinary manner,” compounding the pressure on an already thin staff.
A Crisis Beyond Migration
Citing El Pueblo de Ceuta, the UFP contends that the fallout from the late-July arrivals extends well beyond immigration processing. The union points to a surge in crime, including sexual assaults and other violent attacks, along with what it describes as the systematic collapse of Ceuta’s healthcare services.
Officers have reportedly responded to a wave of incidents involving stabbings, home invasions, and serious injuries since the influx began. Police have also encountered individuals armed with sticks, knives, machetes, and pellet guns, the union said.
According to El Faro de Ceuta, the UFP maintains that members of the State Security Forces and the military have already been attacked, and it warns of the risks officers face when intervening in large-scale brawls without, it claims, sufficient personnel to protect themselves.
The union also flagged deteriorating safety for Ceuta’s residents, particularly at night, saying current police numbers are inadequate to handle the altercations, fires, robberies, brawls, and violent assaults affecting the enclave.
Demands and Political Pressure
The UFP’s demands place direct pressure on Spain’s socialist central government to deploy additional officers to Ceuta. The union has framed the situation as unsustainable for the officers on the ground, who are simultaneously managing a backlog of asylum claims and responding to street-level violence.
The heart attack suffered by the migration office officer has become a focal point for the union’s argument. The UFP is leveraging the incident to press its case that the current staffing model cannot absorb the volume of work or the security challenges the enclave now faces.
Spanish authorities have not publicly responded to the union’s latest demands in the reporting cited. The condition of the hospitalized officer was not immediately detailed beyond the confirmation that they were admitted to an ICU.
The dispute underscores the broader tensions surrounding migration policy in Spain, where the central government in Madrid has faced recurring criticism from police unions and regional officials over resources and border management. For Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the Moroccan coast, the stakes are both logistical and political, with the union warning that the current trajectory leaves officers and residents exposed.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/09/14/ceuta-invasion-spanish-police-union-denounces-collapse-of-overworked-overwhelmed-officers/