The Spanish government representative in the North African exclave of Ceuta resigned on Monday, citing personal reasons, after he came under intense scrutiny in recent weeks over the influx of tens of thousands of migrants from Morocco, Reuters reported.
The crisis erupted in late July when more than 72,000 migrants arrived in Ceuta, overwhelming reception centers. This has sparked intense debate over migration policy, which is being implemented along one of the EU's two land borders with Africa.
Most of the migrants have already left Ceuta, although thousands are still in the self-governing exclave and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's leftist minority government is struggling to deal with the political fallout from the influx.
Spanish government spokesman Miguel Angel Perez Triano, who is responsible for coordinating between the Ceuta government and Spanish state agencies and security forces, defended his handling of the crisis but said the ensuing public attention and campaign of harassment against him and his family had become unbearable.
"My family does not deserve to stay in my position anymore," he said, adding that he had been subjected to insults and threats, and that someone had left a funeral wreath outside his office.
He said that when he presented the government with the report, he had no operational control over border security or security forces and that the information he had previously had not indicated that so many migrants would enter the exclave.
The government in Madrid has repeatedly said that although it had received warnings about possible border crossings, nothing had indicated that an entry on the scale of the one that occurred in Ceuta was imminent.
Spain's Supreme Court is investigating the events and is expected to hear testimony from Pérez Triano's former chief of staff this week.
In an interview with radio “Cope“ today, the Spanish Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres Pérez, said that he estimated that there were up to 3,500 migrants in Ceuta who were outside the migrant reception facilities in the exclave.