Volunteer caregivers in the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta report that cat colonies are vanishing, dead animals are turning up cut apart, and birds such as pigeons and seagulls are being found half-devoured in the weeks since tens of thousands of migrants poured across the border from Morocco.
Nearly three weeks after the mass invasion, local reports describe cats displaced or missing, and carcasses discovered in disturbing conditions. Caregivers who have continued feeding the animals daily say the damage is already severe.
One volunteer administrator, identified as Merelo, told La Gaceta she has found “many dead cats, cut,” some missing half their body or pierced with a punch, along with mistreated animals.
She has also located pigeons and seagulls that were half-eaten, though she said she did not personally witness anyone consuming them.
“When the people entered, the cats left their habitat, as happens in any natural space,” she explained. Merelo noted that Muslims traditionally show respect for cats, but among the new arrivals are people of sub-Saharan origin from various backgrounds.
The same pattern of disappearance is detailed in an account published by El Faro de Ceuta. Author Ángel Ruiz, writing in support of the volunteer caregivers, stated that the harm caused to the cat colonies “is great and, in many cases, irreparable.”
Cats have left areas now occupied by migrants. “It can be said clearly that cats are missing. Where are they? As of today, no one knows,” the caregivers summarize.
Affected sites include the area near the desalination plant, which caregivers describe as a disaster after occupation made it uninhabitable for the territorial animals. The same has happened in Huerta Téllez, Carmelitas, Calle Goya, and the neighborhoods of Príncipe, Sidi Embarek, and Punta Blanca, now turned into improvised settlements.
The volunteers are calling for the city government and central authorities to provide provisional housing outside the urban core so migrants stop occupying spaces that belong to the city’s community animals, and for immediate eviction of unauthorized camps.
The animal reports fit a pattern repeatedly documented in other places hit by rapid, large-scale irregular migration.
In British cities, migrants have been filmed hunting pigeons with fishing rods and bare hands in public streets.
Similar clips have shown people catching and butchering swans and ducks in the UK and Ireland.
In one case a Nigerian migrant was caught cooking a cat in a public park next to a children’s playground.
In Springfield, Ohio, the city manager acknowledged hearing reports that Haitian migrants were eating pets.
These incidents are not isolated curiosities; they surface with depressing regularity where cultural norms around animal welfare, public space, and food sources collide with sudden demographic change that authorities refuse to control.
This is the latest chapter in the chaos that has gripped Ceuta since the late-July avalanche. Estimates of the initial crossing ranged into the tens of thousands—figures comparable to a large share of the enclave’s roughly 84,000 residents—many of them young men who swam or climbed around the border.
Thousands have remained. Reception capacity collapsed. Beaches and open spaces are now filled with shacks, garbage, and human waste. Children’s parks were left smeared in feces.
Reports of sexual assaults have mounted, including cases involving minors. Spanish mothers have been filmed weeping in the streets, packing children off to the mainland, and describing daily fear of leaving home without protection.
We also now have reports from local police of migrants dragging women off the streets, taking them into the surrounding mountainous territory and gang raping them.
Spanish authorities have deployed extra police and troops at points, yet the underlying policy of managed openness continues.
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