Spain plans burials, seeks identities of those killed in Ceuta migrant rush

BARCELONA/CEUTA/RABAT, Aug 7 - Police and forensic scientists have drafted in extra staff to try to identify the bodies of 80 migrants found after last week's mass rush into Spain's Ceuta enclave, as desperate families wait for news of missing loved ones.

Most will be buried in Ceuta in the coming days, officials said.

For the vast majority who won't be named before then, staff have taken fingerprints and DNA samples and will keep working to connect the bodies with names, and then with relatives.

'WE HAVE HEARD NOTHING MORE'

The influx and associated fatalities overwhelmed Ceuta's five-man forensic team, which dealt with just 76 deaths in the whole of last year. Eight extra staff have been drafted in from the mainland and a bigger morgue has been set up at a former military hospital.

"We have faced such a number of victims that it has overwhelmed our operational capacities," said team director Manuel Aparcero, who was called to certify the deaths of migrants as they were brought onto the beach on July 30.

As his team kept working a week on, families posted messages on social media, watched news reports and kept close to phones, hoping their relatives would finally get in touch.

Jamal Bahloul, 26, said his 22-year-old brother Mohamed, a construction worker, left his home in Tangier and was last in contact on July 30.

"We have heard nothing more," said Bahloul. "We don't know whether he is in Ceuta or he died."

Other relatives are gathering at the Moroccan side of the border to press officials for answers and visit local morgues.

Around 72,000 people illegally entered Ceuta from Morocco in a 24-hour period, according to Spanish estimates.

Autopsies revealed many of the 80 people whose bodies were brought ashore in Spain died from cardiopulmonary arrests — a common feature of drownings, pathologists said.

Just four have been identified through fingerprints already in Spanish databases or through DNA samples, and tests are being run to confirm the identities of another four, according to a statement from a local court issued late on Thursday.

Spanish police have shared the fingerprints of all those who died with the Moroccan authorities, and have opened an office by the border where relatives can file a missing persons report and supply DNA samples.

A total of 19 reports had been filed by Thursday, according to the court statement.

Efforts to identify the migrants are being conducted under a mass accidents protocol that is usually applied to traffic accidents or natural disasters primarily affecting Spaniards, such as the Adamuz rail disaster in January.

Charities have in the past criticised the government's failure to apply the same measures to incidents involving migrants, such as the 2024 sinking of a migrant boat near the Canary Islands in which 57 people were believed to have died.

All the migrant bodies will be buried in Ceuta in the coming days unless a relative asks for a body already identified to be repatriated, Aparcero said. Bodies can also be later exhumed to be transferred abroad if authorized by a judge.

After the autopsies, forensics teams have been cleaning the bodies in accordance with the Muslim rites, Aparcero added. "We respect their ideology and religion." REUTERS