“If you are thinking about emigrating, this is your page.” This is how Haraga El Ghorba introduces himself, a user who already has 28,000 followers on TikTok, to whom draws a simple and promising scenario to reach Spain from Moroccoin videos of just 20 seconds.
They all follow the same pattern: a map taken from Google Maps in which the swim of a puppet from the Moroccan coast to Ceuta is traced, accompanied by a kilometer counter. One of the most viewed reads: “The closest distance between Morocco and Spain is 6 kilometers“. A simple montage, an apparently simple solution and a clarifying phrase, all of them, perfect ingredients for the videos to go viral. Although, of course, they are not the only ones who invite thousands of young people to illegally cross the border.
@haragama00 أقرب مسافة بين مغرب واسباننيا 6 كلم😍🇪🇦💔#nador_city #Melilla #فنيدق #سبتة_مليلية #haraga_oropa_official #الهجرة_الى_اوروبا🇪🇺 # ♬ they are original – Haraga El Ghorba🇪🇺🇪🇦
During the month of August, Moroccan security forces prevented the entry of 11,300 irregular migrants who intended to reach Ceuta by swimming, and another 3,300 in Melilla. The week of September 15 The Government of Morocco once again blocked the entry of another 3,000 young people at the Ceuta border and just two weeks later, both countries – Morocco and Spain – reinforced security on the fence in the face of the ‘alarm’ unleashed on social networks by the Call set for Monday the 30th for a massive entry of young migrants. But what is behind these mass calls?
Haraga, an outlet for young Maghrebs
Haraga is not just a social media trend that encourages young North Africans to organize to cross the border, or at least, it is not only that. Haraga is the materialization of the restlessness and uncertainty of those who do not see a future in their place of origin.
Its meaning is clandestine immigrant. It derives from the Arabic word haraqa, to burn, although in reality it is a neologism used in the Maghreb to name the immigrants who destroy their documentation in order to make their repatriation difficult.
Although there were more calls before and after, The peak of this movement occurred on September 15. Days before, numerous Instagram and TikTok users, mainly, repeated a date and begged God for help in their publications.
An example of this was the video published by @magog_i, with almost 80,000 followers, in which a young man explained in Arabic: “Half of the population of Morocco knows what is going to happen on the 15th. The other half, no. To those of you who know what is going to happen, take care of yourselves and may God help you. By the way, tag one of your colleagues and ask them, do you know what’s going to happen on the 15th or not? If you don’t know, you don’t live among us. May God make everything easier for each one.”
Like this one, many other users echoed the hashtags “We meet on 09/15”, “Hopefully on 9/15” or “9/15 Fnideq-Ceuta”, the latter, as reference to Castillejos, the Moroccan city next to Ceuta which, in fact, received thousands of young people that day.
However, both the one on the 15th and the last call on September 30 – which had much less echo on social networks – to jump the fence, They were left in a failed attempt with at least four detainees by the Moroccan Police by inciting an irregular pass to Ceuta.
