Accounts based mainly in Argentina circulated false claims that Brazil was receiving a wave of Moroccan migrants because of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s policies, a Brazilian disinformation monitor found.
Observatório Lupa recorded about 13,400 mentions of the narrative across social media and websites between August 21 and 27. Approximately 11,000 were in Spanish and 2,000 in Portuguese, according to the investigation.
The posts supplied no official evidence of a mass arrival. Several used photographs from migrant crossings into Ceuta, the Spanish-administered enclave bordering northern Morocco, or images unrelated to either Morocco or Brazil.
The narrative gained momentum on August 25 after Argentine outlet La Derecha Diario published an article claiming Moroccan immigration to Brazil’s Santa Catarina state had risen sharply because of Lula’s policies.
The claim distorted a report that 50 Moroccans had sought refugee assistance in Santa Catarina over three months.
Official figures cited by the investigation show that 57 Moroccans applied for asylum in the state between January and July. They represented 1.86% of its 3,059 applications, compared with 1,707 from Cubans, 543 from Haitians and 227 from Venezuelans.
Across Brazil, Moroccans submitted 835 of 40,961 asylum applications during the period.
One post claiming that Lula had brought a “wave of Moroccan migrants” received more than 475,000 views.
Lupa said the narrative originated mainly among Argentine accounts before gaining traction in Brazil. Researchers described the campaign as a combination of genuine figures stripped of context, unsupported claims about government policy and unrelated images designed to create the appearance of a migration crisis.
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