Residents gathered at Ceuta's port before Negu Gorriak was due to arrive on 20 September 2026. The group said it would deliver aid to migrants and challenge migration controls. The confrontation later escalated into clashes.
Residents gathered at Ceuta's port on Sunday, 20 September 2026, waiting for a ferry carrying members of Negu Gorriak. The group planned to distribute what it calls humanitarian aid to migrants. It also planned live broadcasts alongside what it described as «disobedience and resistance». Protesters said they would not let the visitors pass. Several Spanish media reports said the confrontation later took place at the port exit, where police fired warning shots into the air.
Spanish flags appeared among the demonstrators outside the port. Some residents circulated a call to attend the vehicle exit and reject what they described as the entry of radical proetarra groups into Ceuta. Their anger is tied to the belief that the delegation intends to support migrants who have remained in the city for more than 50 days after the invasion. Protesters also feared the group could confront members of the Fuerzas y Cuerpos de Seguridad del Estado.
Reports on the 20 September confrontation said that one person was detained and that a vehicle was damaged; the damaged car was not linked to the Negu Gorriak delegation.
The claim that a confrontation with police was planned first appeared in the source as a rumour among protesters, not as a confirmed action. After the port incident, reports described warning shots, a detention and damage to a vehicle. No evidence or complaint has been reported to support claims that security forces systematically repress migrants or destroy their mobile devices to obstruct asylum applications.
The organisation has given a more specific account of the material it says it will deliver: mobile phones, power banks and chargers. Before travelling, Negu Gorriak said migrants needed these items because of alleged restrictions affecting them. The group has also framed the mission with the slogan «Gaza está en Ceuta». It planned to send two brigades from Pamplona.
That language places the port dispute within a wider political campaign. Negu Gorriak describes itself as anticapitalist and antiracist. It says it opposes migration-control policies. The group has linked Ceuta's situation to the city's «geostrategic location for capital and the war industry». It also points to what it calls an invisible line connecting the border with deaths at sea, alleged racist raids in Iruñea and the eviction of Aranzadi.
The port confrontation was part of a broader day of mobilisation: Antena 3 and other reports said that more than 1,000 people joined a separate march in Ceuta toward the Tarajal border, protesting migration policy and Madrid.
The organisation's statements do not refer to residents who have struggled to recover normality after more than 72,000 migrants arrived in Ceuta. That omission helps explain why people at the port saw the planned visit as a provocation. A previous port protest shows how quickly migration disputes in the autonomous city can move from a public demonstration to disruption at a border crossing.
Fermín Muguruza remains strongly associated with the Palestinian cause through his music and documentaries. The group intends to send a second brigade with humanitarian aid in the coming weeks. The immediate issue is narrower and more concrete. The arrival on 20 September placed protesters and an activist delegation on opposite sides of Ceuta's port. The wider demonstrations showed that the dispute reaches beyond the visitors themselves.
The facts need to be kept separate. The ferry journey and the proposed aid delivery were reported plans. The alleged police confrontation was initially a rumour, although clashes were later reported on 20 September. The accusations against security forces have no reported proof. Treating these points as one established account would distort the story. The port protest and the reported use of warning shots are real. The political message is explicit. The strongest claims still need evidence rather than repetition.
