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For Spain’s far-left party Podemos, undocumented migrants who lose their lives trying to reach Spain are not all treated in the same way. That is the message conveyed by a written question submitted to Pedro Sánchez’s government by MP and the party’s secretary-general, Ione Belarra, about the circumstances surrounding the death of Daha Mohamed Fadel Lehbib, a 35-year-old Sahrawi from Laâyoune.
The deceased had set off on board a makeshift boat carrying around 60 migrants bound for the Canary Islands. In her written question, Ione Belarra, who is very close to the Polisario, describes him as an «activist committed to the cause of the Sahrawi people». She also points out that he was not among those rescued by Spain’s maritime rescue services.
The parliamentary move follows a complaint filed by Daha’s brother with a court in the Canary archipelago, alleging that the migrant may have been thrown overboard after an altercation with the skipper of the patera.
The Podemos MP argues that this «disappearance comes in a context of particular vulnerability and lack of protection for the Sahrawi population». She called on the Spanish executive to assume its «responsibility» by «ensuring protection for Sahrawis».
This episode is not without precedent; rather, it fits into a broader political line pursued by Spain’s far left. In June 2015, Polisario members, backed by Spanish far-left activists, forced their way into Morocco’s consulate in Las Palmas as a show of «solidarity» with Takbar Haddi. At the time, she was staging a «hunger strike» to protest the circumstances of her son Mohamed Lamine Haidalah’s death a few months earlier in Laâyoune, following a violent altercation with other young people.
More recently, in July 2024, Spanish MEPs referred the matter to the European Commission, seeking to suspend the expulsion to Morocco of two Sahrawis whose asylum applications had been rejected by the Spanish authorities.
