Dozens of unaccompanied migrants were among the more than 10,000 people who forced their way into Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco in May 2021 by scaling a border a border fence or swimming around it as Moroccan border guards stood by. Many had used inflatable rings and rubber dinghies.

The mass border crossing came amid a spat between Spain and Morocco over Madrid’s decision to provide medical treatment for the ailing leader of the independence movement of Western Sahara, a territory occupied by Spain until 1975 when Morocco annexed it.

Following legal action by rights campaigners, a court in Ceuta in August 2021 suspended the repatriation of a group of unaccompanied minors who had arrived in May.

Spain’s Supreme Court Monday dismissed the government’s appeal against this ruling, arguing the minors’ expulsion violated domestic immigration laws as well as the European Human Rights Convention.

Under Spanish law each minor is entitled to an “individual administrative procedure” before they can be deported, as well as an “intervention” on the part of public prosecutors, the court said in its ruling.

The migrant migrants faced a “serious risk” of “physical or mental suffering” as a result of “a collective expulsion of foreigners” which is prohibited by the European Convention on Human Rights, it added.

Spain’s leftist government had argued before the court that a 2007 bilateral agreement between Spain and Morocco allowed for the return of the minors, also citing the “exceptional circumstances” of the mass arrivals in Ceuta in May 2021.

Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish territories on the northern Moroccan coast, are the European Union’s only land borders on the African continent and are frequently the target of migrants hoping to reach mainland Europe.