It’s now nearly nine weeks since tens of thousands of migrants poured across the Moroccan frontier into Ceuta. Most quickly returned to Morocco. But estimates of how many are still in Spain’s tiny North African exclave, which has a population of just 83,000, have varied alarmingly. At one point Madrid said that ‘only’ about 5,000 remained. Government sources now accept that around 20,000 were still in Ceuta after 30 July; last week Ángel Víctor Torres, the minister in charge of the crisis, put the current figure at around 18,000.

On Saturday, police arrested two Moroccan men following the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl at the Trampolín beach settlement

On Saturday, police arrested two Moroccan men following the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl at the Trampolín beach settlement

Although Ceuta occupies an area of just seven square miles, the Spanish state has somehow proved unable to establish even approximately how many migrants are still there. Firemen only recently discovered a previously unknown settlement used by dozens of migrants in old military tunnels. On Saturday police identified more than a hundred young migrants sleeping rough around the abandoned Guano industrial site and among rocks on the nearby shoreline. They are only a fraction of the problem: police and child-protection officials estimate that at least........

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