An ailing Sahrawi leader shakes Spain and Morocco's alliance

The leader of an Algeria-backed movement fighting for the independence of Africa's Western Sahara was quietly admitted to a hospital in Spain last month

LOGRONO, Spain -- The mysterious COVID-19 patient arrived at an airport in northern Spain in a private jet. An ambulance ferried the 71-year-old man on a freeway that passed vineyards of Rioja grapes to a state-of-the-art public hospital in the city of Logrono. The patient was sent directly to an intensive care bed, registered on April 18 with the identity on his Algerian diplomatic passport: Mohamed Benbatouche. He turned out to be Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, an Algeria-backed pro-independence movement representing the local Sahrawi people of Africa's Western Sahara. Ghali's presence in Spain under a disguised identity didn't go unnoticed to the government in Morocco, the country that annexed Western Sahara nearly half a century ago. Rabat, which regards Ghali as a terrorist, protested Spain's decision to grant compassionate assistance to its top enemy. It threatened there would be “consequences.” And they finally came to fruition this week when Morocco let down its guard on the border with Ceuta, a Spanish city perched on the northern African coastline.