The Rush
They came at dawn, wading chest-deep through the Mediterranean where it narrows to a channel barely wider than a motorway. Some swam the kilometre from Morocco's beaches to Spain's rocks. Others walked around the breakwaters at low tide, holding children above their heads, mobile phones wrapped in plastic bags. By the time the sun had fully risen over Ceuta—the Spanish enclave wedged into Africa's northern coast like a geographical anomaly—the narrow streets were filled with thousands of soaked, exhausted people who had crossed an international border as easily as stepping over a threshold.