Italian fascist prime minister Giorgia Melon and Donald Trump have sezied on the refugee crisis in Sabta, north Africa (Photo: WikipediaCommons)
The refugee crisis in Sabta, north Africa, has become a rallying point for the far right—and the political centre is allowing it to set the agenda.
US president Donald Trump said the situation in Spanish-ruled Sabta—better known by its colonial name Ceuta—“looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people”.
Italy’s fascist prime minister Giorgia Meloni temporarily suspended the “Schengen Agreement”, which allows borderless travel in the EU, with Spain.
Denmark’s social democratic government, which has spearheaded attacks on refugees, backed Meloni’s move.
Czech prime minister, right wing billionaire Andrej Babiš, has demanded Spain’s wholesale suspension from the Schengen Agreement.
The far right tried to mobilise in Sabta. But hundreds of people gathered to oppose a planned rally, which forced organisers to cancel the event.
Twenty two of the 27 EU leaders this weekend called for emergency talks, which are due to be held on Tuesday.
Europe’s far right leaders want to force the Spanish state to harden its immigration policies—and the EU senses an opportunity to reinforce “Fortress Europe”. Its sprawling network of barbed wire, border guards and war plans and ships has turned the Mediterranean Sea into a mass grave.
The European Pact on Migration and Asylum, which came into force this summer, further strengthens security at Europe’s borders.
And the EU cooperates with regimes in north Africa, including Morocco, Libya and Egypt, to repress migrants.
Even now a 500 metre containment barrier is being installed to make it even more difficult for people to cross from Africa to Europe via Sabta.
The human cost of the EU’s border regime was on full display in Sabta. At least 67 people died trying to get into the Spanish colony from Morocco, many of them by drowning.
Most of the 60,000 people who crossed into Sabta have since decided to leave, saying they faced extreme violence and gruelling living conditions.
Migrants interviewed by the BBC said, “We saw dead bodies in the morning. We had to leave because of hunger—48 hours without food is extremely difficult to endure.”
And some people “assaulted the migrants”, one of them said. “I witnessed one of them slash a migrant’s hand and cut off one of his fingers.”
Far right politicians are blaming the Spanish state for letting migrants into Europe.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez from the Labour-type PSOE has taken a more progressive stance on migration than other European leaders.
The likes of Trump, Meloni and the far right Vox party in the Spanish state want to force Sánchez to dump a decree adopted earlier this year.
The decree allowed undocumented migrants to apply for legal residence. This was the result of the pressure of the anti-racist movement, such as the big mobilisation of migrants in 2020.
But Sánchez took this stance knowing that Spanish big business is desperate for labour among an ageing population.
He still backs the EU border regime and Spain maintaining its colonies in north Africa.
Sánchez should have responded to the far right attacks over Sabta by calling for a shift in immigration policy across Europe and an end to Fortress Europe.
Instead, he has spoken about “a violation of the country’s sovereignty” and deployed the army to try to stop refugees making it across the border.
Sánchez has responded by stating that securing the external borders of Europe is a shared goal.
And he has published a league table, boasting that Spain lets fewer irregular migrants into its territory than Italy, Greece or the Balkans.
Many have pointed the finger at Morocco for letting people into Sabta, a Spanish enclave on the coast of the north African country.
In 2021, Morocco relaxed border controls at Sabta after the Spanish government allowed an independence leader from Western Sahara to receive medical treatment in Spain.
To smooth things over with Morocco, the Spanish state changed its position on Western Sahara.
Spain and Morocco agree a trade package, worth around €800 million, to encourage Spanish corporations to invest in Morocco.
The other side of the coin was a €500 million package from the EU to clamp down on “illegal immigration”. And the Sánchez government gave another €30 million to pay for patrols of Sabta and the coast.
The Moroccan regime is an important partner in trade—and the repression of migrants.
But Algeria, which backs the Western Sahara national independence movement, broke off relations with Spain in response. It ripped up a trade agreement, which hit Spanish exports, and threatened to cut off natural gas.
Spain relies on Algerian imports for around one third of its national gas consumption.
On 20 July, Sánchez met with the Algerian president to rebuild bilateral relations and sign a natural gas deal.
David Karvala from United Against Fascism and Racism in Catalonia told Socialist Worker that the Moroccan state did allow the crossings.
“But that doesn’t explain why there are tens of thousands of people who took the opportunity to come through,” he said.
“They have been wanting to come through the whole time—there are many reasons why they would want to come to Europe, whether economic, social or political.”
The increase in people trying to cross comes after a Spanish supreme court ruling on 8 July. Judges said that Spanish authorities cannot automatically deport migrants who swim to Sabta, only those who cross a “physical barrier”.
The US and Israel have been strengthening ties with the Moroccan regime—and some have opportunistically slammed Spanish rule over Sabta and Mliliya in Morocco as part of that process.
The likes of Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have now seized on the crisis to bash the Spanish government. Sánchez has taken a more principled stance over Palestine and the war on Iran than other European states.
But there is a difference between the US and Israel exploiting the crisis to further their goals—and seeing the hand of Israel or Zionism behind an “invasion” of Sabta.
David said that some people in the Spanish state, including on the left, have adopted the rhetoric of “defending the Spanish state”. “Do they want the Spanish security forces to shoot people or to drown them at sea?” he asked.
“That is already happening. People are already drowning. Those who say ‘we need to defend Spain’—that’s what it means.
“Some people say there are not enough resources for migrants. But the state has doubled the military budget—so there is money for some things.”
David said that the first priority for anti-racists should be to defend migrants and asylum seekers and oppose racist campaigns against them.
“People have the right to apply for asylum,” he said. “And we also have to question what the Spanish state is doing in Africa in the first place. It’s a question we don’t often ask and is hardly spoken about.
“We have to oppose the colonialism of our own state.”
In Britain, the far right has also seized on the scenes in Sabta to push their anti-migrant agenda. It’s never more important to say, “Refugees and migrants are welcome here.”
Racism first developed as a justification for enslavement
