At least 72 people are believed to have died late last week, most of them drowned or crushed as they joined tens of thousands of others in attempting to swim from Moroccan waters to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Yet the scale of that human tragedy has barely registered, as Donald Trump has decried an “invasion” while European politicians exploit the crisis to serve their own agendas. If further evidence were needed of the way that the radical right increasingly distorts the terms of the migration debate in the EU, the last few days have furnished it.
More needs to be understood about the drivers behind a shocking episode. Misinformation on social media – orchestrated or otherwise – appears to have played a big part, following a Spanish supreme court ruling that migrants arriving by sea could not be summarily turned back. Moroccan authorities seemingly did little to prevent the chaotic exodus, which echoed previous smaller incidents and focused international attention on a territory whose sovereignty Rabat contests. If there were online indications that such an incursion was a possibility, no alarm was sounded.
