Hospital in Ceuta Into a Makeshift Mass Morgue to Handle the Bodies From What Is Being Called the Worst Migrant Tragedy

Spain has hastily converted the former Military Hospital in Ceuta into a makeshift mass morgue to handle the bodies from what is being called the worst migrant tragedy in the country's recent history. The government officially counts 72 dead in Spanish waters, but local sources say the toll has already reached 90, and with bodies washing up on the Moroccan side—where authorities are reportedly refusing to deal with them—the number could exceed 100. Since Thursday, the waters off Ceuta near the Tarajal border have been the scene of a grim, relentless operation. Guardia Civil marine units in inflatable boats wait for the signal to haul up the lifeless bodies of migrants—part of an estimated 60,000 who stormed the border, most swimming—who failed to make it to shore.

The dead are lifted onto vessels, brought to land with help from Red Cross volunteers, and then transported to the port. The migrant surge from Morocco has overwhelmed not only the city's humanitarian capacity—residents were forced to lock themselves indoors as crowds of mostly young men, women, and children roamed the streets—but also its forensic services, which are utterly saturated by an unprecedented number of deaths in just 48 hours. The old Military Hospital, closed and unused since 2018, has been reopened as a macro morgue to store the bodies, mostly men of Moroccan origin, that the sea keeps returning in a steady trickle.

Initially, the dead were kept in a designated area at the port and at the Guardia Civil's maritime base, with the help of a refrigerated truck and other temporary spaces. But as those facilities overflowed, the Ceuta government handed the building over to the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML), which is handling the operation and the autopsies. The IML already had a cold storage chamber there, but capacity has been expanded with additional refrigerated units.

Work at the Military Hospital has been nonstop to adapt its old funeral home. The doors, closed and guarded by security, open periodically to let in black vans carrying bodies and vehicles ferrying forensic supplies. On Sunday morning, a motorcyclist arrived with a package of surgical gowns for the autopsies.

Prefabricated panels and refrigeration compressors, transported on military trucks, have been used to set up the chambers where the bodies will remain while forensic teams work around the clock to complete autopsies before burial. The IML's two staff forensic doctors in Ceuta have been joined by four more sent from the mainland. Even with reinforcements, autopsies on all the bodies are not expected to be finished for another two to three days.

Activity at the improvised morgue is frantic; on Sunday morning, the priority was "organizing the bodies, according to sources. Another problem looms: Ceuta's Muslim cemetery could collapse if it has to receive all the dead migrants. Although the second phase of an expansion project was completed last December, the next phase wasn't scheduled for months.

With current capacity, burying the roughly 100 victims of this crisis would fill the Sidi Embarek necropolis. As a result, the Ceuta health department has approved an urgent action to begin expansion works immediately, with the aim of starting this Monday. To put the situation in perspective, in a "normal" year, Ceuta records around 20 deaths.

In 2024, there were 23; in 2025, an exceptional year, 46. In an entire year. In these past few days, in just over 24 hours, nearly 100 people have died."