Italy has begun conducting spot checks on passengers arriving from Spain, temporarily restoring border controls because of the migration crisis in Ceuta, El Mundo reports.

Since Saturday, police officers at the country’s airports and seaports have been checking the documents of passengers arriving on flights from Spain. The measure was introduced after Giorgia Meloni’s government decided to temporarily suspend the Schengen Agreement on this route.

The move was prompted by a large-scale migration crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, where about 60,000 migrants illegally crossed the border from Morocco. According to official data, at least 67 people died as a result of the crisis.

Against this backdrop, Spain has begun installing protective barriers on the breakwater at the Tarajal border crossing. The head of the autonomous city of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, said that it is still too early to talk about normalizing the situation, since several thousand migrants are still in the city awaiting return to Morocco.

He also called for enhanced security measures to remain in place and stressed that Ceuta and Melilla are the only land borders of the European Union on the African continent.