Two months after swimming across the breakwaters to Ceuta, Spain, Mohamed learned that his asylum claim was denied.
uncertain
claim → swim → Ceuta
In late July, at his home in Tangier, Mohamed didn’t hesitate when he received a social media alert that the border crossing between Morocco and the Spanish enclave had opened.
asserted
crossing → hesitate → Morocco
He hopped in a friend’s car, drove four hours to the border, and jumped into the sea.
asserted
He → hop → sea
“I swam for three or four hours, I was so cold,” he said.
asserted
he → swim → hours
You can’t even imagine.”
asserted
You → imagine → ?
He carried nothing but his phone and 14 euros.
asserted
He → carry → phone
I first connected with Mohamed through a friend in academia, and over the last few weeks, I’ve been speaking to him while he’s lived in a Ceuta shelter along the border.
asserted
he → connect → border
The facility has ten showers and four phone charging ports for over a thousand migrants.
asserted
facility → have → migrants
Mohamed was initially optimistic while waiting for his pending asylum application, but that’s changed now that his case has been denied.
asserted
case → wait → application
“I’m so sad, I have no mood,” he told me over WhatsApp.
asserted
he → ’m → WhatsApp
“All of our claims, they’re getting denied.”
uncertain
they → deny → claims
Mohamed (not his real name) is one of the estimated 80,000 people who crossed from Morocco into Ceuta over 48 hours last summer—the largest recorded migrant crossing which took place at one of only two land borders between Africa and the European Union.
asserted
which → estimate → Africa
The other is the Spanish enclave Melilla and both locations have experienced migrant crossings.
asserted
locations → experience → crossings
Over two days in May 2021, 8,000 people entered Ceuta, and in June 2022, 2,000 people attempted to cross the Melilla border fence.
uncertain
people → enter → fence
But the sheer number of people who made the crossing in July eclipses previous attempts by an order of magnitude.
asserted
who → make → magnitude
Like Mohamed, many migrants this summer waded into the sea and swam around the breakwaters of Tarajel Beach and Benzú into Ceuta.
asserted
migrants → wad → Ceuta
An estimated 141 people died, some by drowning and some were crushed as they attempted to climb around the border fence.
asserted
they → estimate → fence
“It was a disaster,” said Francesca Fusaro, a volunteer for No Name Kitchen, a humanitarian NGO that provides aid to migrants crossing borders.
asserted
that → say → borders
Within a matter of days, over 70,000 people voluntarily returned to Morocco, but thousands still remain in Ceuta hoping to be granted asylum.
asserted
thousands → return → asylum
More are being rejected every day.
asserted
More → reject → ?
When news of the mass crossing first broke, headlines describing the events went viral: “Taxi drivers called it an invasion; NGOs described it as a humanitarian crisis; local politicians faced with handling the situation labeled it a national emergency,” Carmen Morán Breña wrote in El País.
asserted
Breña → break → País
Meanwhile, far-right Russian and Israeli networks fueled right-wing social media narratives online, calling the crossing an “assault” and pushing Islamophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
asserted
networks → fuel → theories
Media attention may have focused on the geopolitics behind the crossing, but another reality was in the background: climate change.
uncertain
reality → focus → background
That is not to say that the effects of climate change caused tens of thousands of people to risk their lives by attempting to swim to Ceuta.
asserted
thousands → say → Ceuta
Economic forces were much more urgent motivators for Mohamed to leave his home.
asserted
Mohamed → leave → home
“I am suffering in Morocco,” he told me.
asserted
he → suffer → me
I have a degree in British literature.
asserted
I → have → literature
I speak English, German, and French.
asserted
I → speak → English
I work as a painter.”
asserted
I → work → painter
But after another summer of extreme temperatures and wildfires in the northern and southeastern provinces in Morocco, severe flash flooding and landslides in rural communities throughout the High Atlas Mountains, and the culmination of a seven-year drought after a winter of heavy rainfall across the country, climate change also may be an underlying factor in creating the economic crisis forcing so many to leave their homes.
uncertain
change → underlie → homes
As Lauren Herzer Risi pointed out in her piece for New Security Beat, “60,000 [plus] people don’t just cross a border when a guard points to an open door.”
asserted
guard → point → door
I spoke to several experts focused on the intersection of climate change, migration, and border security.
asserted
I → speak → change
They explained the nuanced interaction between the warming world and migration.
asserted
They → explain → world
“Every story of human movement now is a climate story, whether we like it or not,” said Petra Molnar, a lawyer and researcher who has spent years documenting what she calls “border necrotechnics”—the lethal blend of law, racism, and technology at borders.
asserted
she → like → borders
“Pretty much every case of forced or ‘voluntary’ migration has a climate element built into it.”
asserted
case → have → it
Whether within or across borders, “no one calls themselves a climate migrant,” said Amali Tower, the co-founder of the organization Climate Refugees.
asserted
Tower → call → organization
Legally, there’s no such category because international law does not consider climate displacement to be grounds for refugee status.
asserted
displacement → ’ → status
Add to this the fact that data on international climate displacement is lacking; it’s easier to measure displacement after a distinct disaster, such as a hurricane, rather than the slow onset of rising temperatures or sea levels.
asserted
it → add → temperatures
Today, North Africa and the Middle East are warming faster than the rest of the world, and Morocco’s agricultural sector—the cornerstone of the country’s economy—is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts like soil degradation and depleted groundwater.
asserted
sector → warm → degradation
Many Moroccan farmers have had to adjust their lives in response to extreme weather events, planting different crops, or eating different food, or reducing livestock holdings.
asserted
farmers → have → holdings
…and 42 more, not listed.
The Aporia
