Migrant gear for storming the border with Africa found on a beach in Spain's Ceuta

On the coast of the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in North Africa, gear abandoned by migrants who had attempted to illegally cross into the European Union has been discovered. Wetsuits, flippers and other equipment used for swimming along the coastline to bypass border fences were left behind on the sand.

Ceuta is a Spanish city on the Strait of Gibraltar covering 18.5 square kilometres, home to more than 80,000 people, most of them Christians, though roughly a third of residents are Muslim. Together with neighbouring Melilla, Ceuta forms the EU's only land border with Africa, although neither city is formally part of the Schengen Area.

Spain has held Ceuta since 1580; before that, the city was ruled by Portugal from 1415. Unlike Gibraltar, located just across the strait and belonging to Britain, Ceuta is considered an integral part of the Kingdom of Spain.

Morocco has never recognised Spanish sovereignty over the city. Madrid, for its part, insists that Ceuta has been under Spanish control for longer than the Kingdom of Morocco has even existed — a key argument in the territorial dispute.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz