Authorities in Ceuta asked the government in Madrid to declare a national emergency and requested army intervention, as thousands crossed into the tiny Spanish territory on Thursday.
Videos shot at Tarajal beach showed crowds of people, mainly Moroccans, walking around the breakwaters and running on the beach and roads.
“Viva España!” some shouted to a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press filming the scene.
The escalation at the border between Spain and Morocco comes after a surge in migrants attempting to reach the small exclave on the North African coast, mainly by swimming.
The scenes of people streaming across the frontier recall the border crisis of May 2021 when more than 8,000 migrants poured into Ceuta in just two days.
Those attempting the crossing are mainly Moroccans, along with a small number of Algerians who had been living in Morocco while trying to migrate to Europe, according to activists in Morocco and Ceuta.
It was not clear what prompted so many migrants to swim to Ceuta.
