Migrants PARAGLIDE into Ceuta - with one killed after crashing into the sea - amid fears another 'invasion' has been planned

A migrant was caught paragliding into Ceuta from Morocco just a day after another died attempting the same stunt.

Police are still searching for a sub-Saharan man who vanished shortly after landing at the Benzu viewpoint, close to the land border with Morocco.

Yesterday another man lost control of his paraglider and crashed into the sea after attempting to cross the border.

Police raced to the spot where he had been spotted plunging into the water in the hope of rescuing him.

However, they recovered his body from the Mediterranean Sea after a suspected drowning. 

The unorthodox approach to entering the city has stemmed from people smugglers offering quick-fire courses in paragliding, Spanish Police said.

However, the courses were lasting mere minutes rather than the 80 to 100 hours of training normally considered appropriate before risking their lives taking to the skies. 

At least 100 people died trying to make the crossing, either by drowning or being crushed to death by the crowds.

And police are bracing for another mass border breach on Saturday, after reports it has been heavily promoted on social media. 

The paragliders reportedly took off from Jebel Musa, a 2,285m mountain overlooking Ceuta and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Believed to be the site where Moses received the Ten Commandments, the mountain is also known in Spanish as la Mujer Muerta – meaning the dead woman.

From the high take-off point, they were able to pass over the 20ft high Ceuta border fence.

Diego Madraza, a spokesman for the AUGC Civil Guard union, said: 'They have no flight training, sometimes they are given a course lasting barely a few minutes before taking off.

'Recently in Morocco, a gang that trained migrants in this type of entry using paragliders was dismantled.

'As soon as one door closes on them, another opens, so now detection can no longer be only be sea or land, but it can also be aerial.'

Criticising Spain's Interior Ministry, the AUGC said on X late yesterday alongside a video of the new paragliding crossing which this time worked: 'We warned about it in January.

'@interiorgob responded in writing to Congress that paraglider entries did not exist.

'Last Friday a young man died after plunging into the sea near the Benzu breakwater while attempting to enter this way.

'First documented death in Spain by this route.

'And a few hours ago another flight over the border. The video speaks for itself.

'They take off from la Mujer Muerta, the mountain that connects the Moroccan neighbourhood of Belyounech with the border perimeter near the Benzu breakwater.

'Denying it does not make it disappear. It only prevents resources from being provided and surveillance measures from being adapted in time.'

Last month hordes of migrants bypassed a long border fence between Morocco and the Spanish territory, before swimming around the border and arriving on the beach.

Upon their arrival, the migrants were seen apparently trying to break into homes across the city late at night, with local media reporting that a Moroccan couple carrying a baby used a ladder to climb up to a first-floor window, break a window, and climb in. 

The Civil Guard has reportedly admitted in an internal report the risk of a second mass attempt to reach EU soil is real - and prepared for the possibility organisers could bring it forward now the August 15 date is out in public.

Although most of the migrants who made it to Ceuta have returned to Morocco, officials admit 2,500 irregular migrants remain, including some 1,000 children, although locals insist the figure is far higher.

Distressing pictures have emerged of dozens of young men, families and children sleeping on the pavement on makeshift beds made out of cardboard boxes at an industrial estate.

They have also erected makeshift camps made out of bamboo and reeds on a beach near a temporary migrant holding centre.

Several girls who were among the wave of migrants and remained in Ceuta have complained of being sexually assaulted after arriving and finding themselves obliged to sleep rough.

On Saturday, a Moroccan migrant who broke into a stranger’s fifth-floor flat and crept into bed with her in his underpants was handed an expulsion order.

Beatriz Ferron, 62, started screaming after waking up to find the semi-naked intruder, laying beside her.

He was arrested on Friday morning and hauled to court just hours later.

He pleaded guilty to breaking and entering and was handed a 16-month prison sentence, which was immediately substituted for deportation and a five-year ban on entering Spain.

Court sources also confirmed the unnamed individual already had a deportation order hanging over his head and had been convicted of three sex assaults in Spain.

Full details of his previous crimes have not been made public but the earlier removal order is said to have been issued by a court in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia.

Last November, five people were arrested in Morocco after police smashed a gang accused of helping migrants reach EU soil using the daring method.

The suspects, said to come from different African countries, were rounded up nearly two months after a man was filmed flying over a heavily-fortified border fence into Ceuta, which lies opposite Gibraltar.

All Spanish police found from a search of the spot where he landed was the abandoned multi-coloured paragliding gear in undergrowth he had used for his exploit.

The successful border breach was described at the time as the first of its kind ever - attempted or accomplished - between Morocco and Ceuta.

Police unions said following the influx of migrants that they were emboldened by a decision in the country's Supreme Court earlier this month that created a 'pull factor' for them to rush through. 

The powerful judicial body ruled that migrants intercepted at sea while attempting to reach Ceuta or Melilla – another Spanish enclave further along the Moroccan coast – cannot be summarily returned under the enclaves' special border-rejection regime.

The ruling established that migrants who arrive by sea cannot be immediately pushed back across the border without due process, unlike those who cross into Spain by land – by physically climbing over the border fence, for example. 

Police unions said this Supreme Court decision created a 'pull factor' for migrants. 

The Unified Police Union said the surge came 'after the Supreme Court rejected border rejections, complicating deportations'.

It added: 'We demand the Government immediately reinforce the National Police and Civil Guard personnel at the border with Morocco.' 

Upon their arrival, the migrants, largely made up of people from Morocco and Algeria, went into the city of around 84,000. 

In response, enraged Spanish citizens were seen taking to the streets to push them back. Many were seen waving Spanish flags and screaming at them.