AMY GOODMAN: Migrants are returning to Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta after a deadly border rush killed as many as 86 people, according to local government officials — some victims drowned, others crushed while trying to climb the breakwater that holds the border fence. About 60,000 people crossed from Morocco since Thursday. Authorities say most have now returned voluntarily.

The Spanish enclave is home to 86,000 people. Many migrants reported difficulties finding food and shelter. Ceuta is located on the North African coast and shares a five-mile border with Morocco. Spain’s Civil Guard officers installed a 1,600-foot floating barrier along the sea border Saturday.

Meanwhile, residents rallied against a planned far-right, anti-migrant demonstration, forcing organizers to cancel it.

This is 42-year-old Mujahid Ahmed of Sudan, who made the trip to Ceuta.

MUJAHID AHMED: I was in Morocco for one year and a half. I didn’t try only for one time. But my friends, they tried maybe 30, 40 times. … One day, when I was watching the media, I saw that people, they are coming by thousand to border. So, I say, “OK, let’s try. It’s better than to do than — and you know the results, than never you try.” … I am not a Moroccan. If they should return me, they should return me to my country. And this is this situation. Can you return the people to the — to my — to the country that which is having a conflict or crisis war? We are human.

AMY GOODMAN: The reasons for the surge are not entirely clear. Some migrants reported Moroccan officials had encouraged their crossing. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez blamed human trafficking networks, who he says misled migrants about how easy it would be to remain in Spanish territory or get to mainland Europe, while others blame Sánchez on account of his relatively liberal policies.

For more, we’re joined by Miriyam Aouragh, professor of digital anthropology at the University of Westminster in London, also an associate fellow in the anthropology department at Oxford University. She’s joining us from Oxford. Her forthcoming book is titled Mobilized Lives: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Morocco. Professor Miriyam Aouragh’s parents migrated from Morocco to Holland in the mid-’60s.

Professor, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you explain what’s taken place over this last week? What accounts do you believe for this surge?

MIRIYAM AOURAGH: Oh, thank you so much for having me on this very important topic.

Before I answer your question, I wanted to start by acknowledging the very, very sad loss of life. As you mentioned in your report, almost a hundred have died, but they have joined more than thousands and thousands of people who’ve migrated over the years from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean seas and are at the bottom of the oceans, and many of whom who are not accounted for and are still unknown to their families. So, I would like to acknowledge that and acknowledge the fact that many, many people have heard Moroccans say, ”Allah yrham lwalidin. Allah yssabar lwalidin,” in the last few days. This means “May God give mercy to the parents. May God forgive us for the grief we put our parents in.” This is a response to the many, many young people who have decided, quite last minute, in some cases, to just try and cross into Ceuta.

The reasons have been widely discussed on social media, to the extent that we have heard wild, quite wild, conspiracy theories, varying from Israel has paid Morocco to destabilize Spain, to Trump has encouraged Morocco to invade Spain. These are quite problematic explanations, not only because they’re not factual and not making us understand the reasons behind this surge of migration, but also because they are very Orientalist and quite racist in the way it reduces ordinary people’s agency in a continent that has seen migration forever and has also seen Morocco become a transit country to Europe.

In answer to your question, I think what we’ve seen is the confluence, the concentric circles coming together, in a way, in a quite unique moment last week. On the one hand, we have the postcolonial, neocolonial border policies of Spain and Europe in general. Many people who’ve seen the maps this week are a bit surprised, because they thought that they would see Ceuta or Melilla in mainland Europe, and then they see, actually, they are towns, cities in Morocco. How do you explain that? And this is very important to understand how the decolonization of Morocco has been both a loss and a win, in the sense that there was independence, but with really strict conditions, one of them being the remaining control of territorial areas in Morocco. So, Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish cities adjacent to the towns in Morocco near Tetouan and Nador. These towns, near cities like Tangier, have become also transit cities for migrants not only from Morocco, not only from Africa, but from the whole world.

During my field work in Tangier and Al Hoceima, I have also interviewed and researched many people who have been working on the ground in grassroots organizations to support migrants from Africa, but also from Afghanistan, from Syria, from Palestine, etc. These migrants, they always try to cross multiple times, and some of those we’ve seen last week, this was not their first journey.

But what was different last week is that we saw a few conditions coming together — on the one hand, these postcolonial realities of territorial borders that make it very ambiguous to have a border inside the continent; on the other hand, there is a extreme increase of inequality in Morocco itself. We’ve seen that the majority of the people who’ve tried to cross last week are Moroccans, and this is quite extraordinary. It is a return of the 1990s, the so-called Harraga, the crossing into Europe by Moroccans that peaked in the '80s and ’90s and then slowly reduced, and the numbers were slowly replaced by non-Moroccans, African migrants, refugees from all over the world. What we've seen now is a surge again in Moroccan migrants, and this has to be explained by the situation in Morocco itself. And it is very troubling to see and to hear the commentary of people, including people I highly respect, critical commentators, who completely ignore the domestic dynamics and focus only on static geopolitical top-down analysis.

But the matter of the fact is that repression in Morocco has increased tremendously. Last year, there was the so-called Gen Z protest across the world. We’ve seen that in Bangladesh, in Indonesia. We’ve seen it actually in the last few weeks also in India. But also Morocco has its — had its Gen Z protest, young teens who are really fed up with the situation. Hundreds of them have been arrested. And only last month, a group of them have been released, and they were awaited outside the prisons by their families, their mothers, their friends — young teens. We have seen repression in Morocco also with regards to critique of the normalization with Israel, the Abraham Accords, and the banning of pro-Palestine protests in Tangier only a few weeks ago, which had led to major protest in response and in anger at banning these protests. And we have seen a extreme deepening of inequality. The rich, the small group of rich, are getting really much richer. Morocco is a rich country. The slogan of protesters goes: “Two oceans and phosphate, and people are still hungry.” The Atlantic, Mediterranean, phosphate, minerals, the Sahara — really, there is no lack of natural resources and agriculture and fishery. But ordinary people do not enjoy these fruits and benefits.

And so, this has led to growing inequality, that has been deepened also by the other very important condition — namely, the European Union stronghold. It’s not only the fact that the European Union has its borders externalized to Morocco. So, Morocco is one of its key external borders. Frontex, Fort Europe, they’re all delegating the dirty work of violent repression at the borders in Morocco. But European Union also imposes the social economic policies in Morocco. The IMF, the European Union are demanding cuts in public sector spending, are demanding also subsidies to be dismantled. And this has led to even more higher levels of economic crisis.

So, all these conditions coming together — the border policies, the inequality — but also the kind of impetus that we have seen growing in the last few months due to Spain’s decision to legalize, as they call it, thousands, hundreds of thousands, of migrants in Spain, that has given a sort of empowering incentive to people to try to go to Spain, which is a very pragmatic decision of Spain, by the way, not so much purely from goodwill, but also from the fact that Spain, unlike Italy or France or other countries that are led by right-wing governments, that know that they need migrants, they really need these people to stay and to work, but are actually led by right-wing rhetorics against migrants. In Spain, there’s a social democratic government that kind of is pragmatic and understands, “We need them, and they’re here. We will legalize them.” This has incentivized people to think, “OK, it’s safe to go to Spain.”

Now, there is another condition that is — 

AMY GOODMAN: We just have a minute left.

MIRIYAM AOURAGH: — has left a lot of people wondering, and we are still finding out the exact facts. And that is that there has been a temporary moment in Morocco last week where the border controls have been reduced. There might be a geopolitical reasoning in the background, that all borders, cities and all countries which have important ports and borders use from time to time as leverage — namely, to reduce security at borders in order to leverage another demand. So, it could be that this has happened in the background at the same time as the inequality, the border policies of Europe, the incentives to go to Spain has happened. And these conditions coming together — so, not each of them explaining it on its own, but these conditions coming together — has led to what we have seen in the past week.

AMY GOODMAN: Miriyam — 

MIRIYAM AOURAGH: And we know from witnesses, and we know from anecdotal stories, that people have been told that it was OK to cross for now, by border police and through viral news that were spread on Facebook and social media, and that has led to people trying to get that small window of opportunity to cross the border. But that was reversed in no time. And the border police, that might have said, “It’s OK to cross. We’re going to close our eyes for five minutes,” have returned with a vengeance and violence and beat those people back from where they came from.

AMY GOODMAN: Miriyam Aouragh, I want to thank you —

MIRIYAM AOURAGH: And as I said, as I started, many people have died.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, professor of digital anthropology at the University of Westminster in London, also associate fellow in anthropology at Oxford University. Her forthcoming book, Mobilized Lives: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Morocco.

Coming up, a new investigation by a Palestinian human rights group looks at how an Israeli settler escaped justice after fatally shooting Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen a year ago. Awdah helped produce the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. Back in 20 seconds.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “When First Unto This Country,” Down Hill Strugglers.