Washington, DC, August 4, 2026 --  

How an old territorial dispute in the distant Sahara Desert triggered a migration crisis in the Spanish city of Ceuta.

Horrifying images of tens of thousands of migrants breaching Spain's Ceuta land border are inflaming anti-immigrant sentiment across the European Union.While most news coverage focusses on the tiny Spanish enclave on Morocco's northern coast, the real cause of trouble isthousands of miles south wherethe borders of Algeria and Morocco meet.

Boundary map courtesy Wikimedia commons. Satellite image courtesy Google Maps. Annotations by author.

An estimated 50,000 migrants scaled fences, floated on rafts, or swam across the border to Ceuta's beach. As of Saturday, 72 migrants were confirmed dead — drowned in the sea or crushed to death in the mass scramble to get over the border fence.¹ A 50-year-old feud over the Western Sahara was the root cause. Morocco's government most certainly had a hand in this—perhaps by using social media to incite migrants to attempt a mass beach, perhaps by telling border guards to look the other way, and probably both. The only question is to what extent and at what level they instigated this crisis.

Why would they do this? Morocco is furious with Spain about arecent visit of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to next-door rival Algeria. Sanchez went to mend fences after a diplomatic rupture four years ago.² Back then, Moroccans cheered as Spain shifted policy to back Morocco's claim to Western Sahara, and it was Algerians who were angry, downgrading relations with Spain in respnose. While there are no reports of Spain backtracking on this issue, Morocco is more than a little nutty about anyone even suggesting tiniest hint of disagreement about its position on Western Sahara. Morocco furiously insists it has the right to rule the area as its southern provinces, much like China furiously insists it is the rightful owner of Taiwan.

Spain has a stake in the game: it ruled the territory as Spanish Sahara until giving it up in 1975. Morocco then invaded the territory, claiming it as its southern provinces. International condemnation and isolation of Morocco over the issue has eased in recent years. The United States recognized Morocco's control of Western Sahara in return for Morocco's recognition of Israel as part of the Abraham Accords. Spain followed suit in 2022 causing the diplomatic crisis with Algeria, which hosts the Western Saharan government in exile and its military wing known as the Polisario Front.

The recent raid on Ceuta is hardly the first time that hat Morocco has used migrants as political pawns to punish Spain over Western Sahara. A similar but smaller border breach at Ceuta took place in 2021 when the Moroccans freaked out over another minor slight -- that time because the exiled Western Sahara leader had entered Spain for medical treatment during the Covid pandemic³. Then, like now, reports were that Moroccan border guards simply started looking the other way as 8.000 migrants streamed by.

This year's freak out was over six times larger, because it was also related to a second powder kegissue for Morocco -- relations with arch-rival of Algeria. Back in 1963, a military conflict erupted between the two countries known as the "Sand War". This was another territorial dispute over a barren desert in a similar area bordering Western Sahara. Partly due to Cuban intervention on Algeria's side, the war resulted in the Moroccans being pushed out of the area, and was forced to give up claims on Algerian territory. But the conflict created lasting enmity, and inspired Algeria's to host and arm Western Saharan rebels known as the Polisario Front.

Today, the Algerian city of Tindouf, just 30 miles from the Moroccan border, hosts the Western Saharan government in exile and is dominated by the refugee community. The Polisario Front is based in the area and periodically launches rockets and mortars to harass thousands of Moroccan occupation troops stationed along a gigantic fortress-studded sand berm they built around Western Sahara to protect it from Algeria and the Polisario Front. Crazy as that may seem, it's no crazier than what the Moroccans did in Ceuta.

Clearly, Morocco is not the first country to use migrants and refugees as politics pawns -- witness the awful treatment of Gazans by Israel as well as Israel's enemies. But the fact that Morocco has received minimal criticism over its duplicity in the storming of Ceuta is outrageous.

Spain has been quiet about Moroccos involvement -- it needs their cooperation for the migrants' return. That silence is understandable. Butthe same cannot be said for the Italian government and for right wing politicians across the EU. They are assisting the evil plans of the Moroccan government in order to score cheap political points against the Spanish government and its liberal immigration policies. Whether you agree with these policies or not, they are irrelevant to what happened in Ceuta. Simply put, this was a deadly political stunt engineered by the government of Morocco to punish Spain. The blood of the dead migrants is plainly on their hands.

Notes:

1. Reuters, Death toll from migrant rush into Spanish enclave in North Africa rises to 72, August 2, 2026

2. France 24, Spain PM Sanchez visits Algeria for first time in four years as ties thaw, July 20, 2026

3. Associated Press, Sahara's Polisario Front chief gets COVID treatment in Spain, April 22, 2021

4. Associated Press, Sahara's Polisario Front chief gets COVID treatment in Spain, April 22, 2021