Italy and Spain have exchanged sharp diplomatic barbs after a mass migrant surge into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta.

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni described images from Ceuta as “shocking”, calling the influx of migrants “uncontrolled immigration” and warning it posed a security threat to Europe.

Italy later suspended its participation in the Schengen free movement agreement with Spain. As the two countries do not share a land border, the move is expected to result primarily in additional checks on air passengers travelling between them.

Spain swiftly hit back, with foreign minister José Manuel Albares calling Meloni’s remarks “improper” for “a partner and friendly country from which we expect European solidarity and not partisan demagoguery”.

Madrid also summoned the Italian ambassador on Friday as tensions between the two EU allies escalated over the migration crisis.

A migrant said he feared for his life after being caught in a stampede during an attempted crossing into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta.

He was among thousands of people who converged overnight on the Moroccan border town of Fnideq in one of the largest recent attempts to reach Europe.

“I feared for my life,” said the migrant, who declined to give his name.

He described chaotic scenes of people pushing and stepping on one another along a narrow coastal route.

Spain dispatched military and police reinforcements to Ceuta after thousands attempted to cross from Morocco. Spanish state broadcaster TVE said between 2,000 and 3,000 people reached the enclave on Thursday.

Despite a heavy Moroccan security deployment, including water cannon trucks and reinforced border patrols, migrants continued arriving in Fnideq through the night.

Groups moved along the coastline seeking routes around the border fence, while others prepared to swim to the enclave after finding official crossing points blocked.

Moroccan Ayoub El Abyad, who was hoping to be one of roughly 60,000 migrants who entered the Spanish territory of Ceuta from Morocco, said they wanted to try their luck after watching social media videos.

The 16-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El Abyad said he scrolled through Instagram videos showing migrants crossing into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and decided he wanted to go.

“Migration is about improving our lives. We agreed ⁠we would try the idea of crossing and trust in Allah,” El Abyad told Reuters on the Moroccan side near the border with Ceuta, after completing the journey by hitching rides with two drivers.

Young people in Morocco have been frustrated by poor public services and poverty and the issued spilled over into a major protest last year.

A quarter of Moroccans aged ​between ⁠15 and 24 are not in education, employment or training, official data show.

Tens of thousands of migrants who crossed into Spain’s tiny Ceuta territory returned voluntarily to Morocco on Friday.

At least 57 migrants died on the journey.

Ceuta’s president put the number of migrants at 60,000, which was equivalent to 70 per cent of the territory’s population. But most of them soon went back, the Spanish government said, after the sudden arrival of so many people sparked a humanitarian crisis.

Some migrants swam several miles through the sea and faced down authorities who tried to turn them back with water cannons, tear gas and warning shots.

Spanish police and military personnel deployed on the streets of the city began redirecting the flow of migrants back to Morocco.

Hundreds of children – many of them unaccompanied – are believed to have crossed from Morocco into Ceuta in the past 24 hours, it has been reported.

One of them was 12-year-old Hamsa Silman, who swam to Tarajal Beach and said he had come to help his mother from Spain.

“There was no need to ask whether he was a minor,” an El Pais reporter on the ground wrote.

“He hugged the friends who had made the crossing with him and called his father, who had known nothing of the journey. The man was crying on the phone screen.”

Hadiya, 16, had told her mother that she was “just going out for a walk at night with a friend”.

The teenager emerged from the sea after spending three hours paddling with the help of an inner tube.

Roughly half of the 60,000 people who had crossed into Ceuta have already made their way back voluntarily, the Spanish government said.

Spanish police and military personnel deployed on the streets of the city began redirecting the flow of migrants back to Morocco.

The interior ministry, which initially refused to share estimates from the border, released its own figures shortly after Ceuta leader, Juan Jesus Vivas spoke, estimating that some 50,000 people had crossed from Morocco in the past 24 hours.

It added that 25,000 had already returned to Morocco, with hundreds more going back by the hour.

The UK’s shadow home secretary has warned Spain’s border crisis could “rapidly become our border crisis” after an estimated 60,000 migrants have poured into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco.

Conservative MP Chris Philp called on the Spanish government to “expel” the people who had entered Ceuta, and urged the them “not allow any onto the Spanish mainland”.

“If these illegal immigrants do make it to Spain, then the EU’s borderless Schengen zone means there is nothing to stop them coming straight to Calais and trying to get a boat across the Channel here. Spain’s border crisis could rapidly become our border crisis,” he said.

“That’s why the Conservative policy is to leave the ECHR enabling all illegal immigrants to be deported with a week or arrival – with no asylum claim, no human rights claim and no court hearing.

“Then illegal immigrants like these circulating in Europe wouldn’t bother to cross to the UK.”

Smugglers have been blamed for the Ceuta migration crisis, with Pedro Sanchez warning that they “deceive so many young people and ultimately lead many of them to their deaths.”

The Spanish prime minister said they had misinterpreted a recent ruling from the Supreme Court, which then triggered the mass surge.

“It appears that this interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling spread like wildfire over the past few hours through the networks of human trafficking organisations, triggering the kind of mass surge we witnessed yesterday,” Sánchez said.

Ukraine has accused Russia of carrying out an “intensive propaganda campaign” using pictures from Ceuta to “sow destabilisation”.

Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha‎ claimed that Ukrainian analysts have identified more than 1,500 publications on a pro-Russian network, led by Pravda and RT.

“For years, Moscow has used migration and other sensitive topics to stoke fear and destabilise European countries,” he wrote on X.

A recent ruling from Spain’s supreme court, which concluded that migrants intercepted at sea cannot be summarily deported, has been linked to the border surge in Ceuta.

Pedro Sanchez said migrant smugglers misinterpreted the ruling, which triggered the surge.

“It appears that this interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling spread like wildfire over the past few hours through the networks of human trafficking organisations, triggering the kind of mass surge we witnessed yesterday.”