Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has accused social media networks with "links to Russia and Israel" of amplifying disinformation following the mass influx of migrants into the North African enclave of Ceuta at the end of July.
In the interview with the Spanish Broadcasting Company (SER) published on Monday, Sánchez also blamed an "international far-right movement" that he said always uses the topic of migration "to attack and divide not only Spain but also Europe." He did not provide further details about the accusations he made.
On July 30 and 31, around 72,000 migrants swam from Morocco to Ceuta or climbed over border fences, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
Most returned within hours. However, around 5,000 migrants were still in the territory as of Friday, the minister said. Of those, 1,200 were minors, Sánchez said.
Some local residents have been staging increasingly violent protests against the presence of so many migrants, who have been in the small territory for weeks, putting the Sánchez government under considerable pressure.
In the SER interview, Sánchez also stressed that the Spanish government could only act on the basis of data and verified facts.
"What we know so far is that a ruling by the Supreme Court of July 8 was distorted, which was spread on social networks through fake news, disinformation and also by criminal organizations that traffic in people," Sánchez said. He said the false reports had claimed the court had ruled that anyone who reached Ceuta by swimming could not be deported - but that was not the case.
Morocco had cooperated "immediately" and fully with the Spanish authorities during the crisis, he said.
