Ceuta: Spanish soldiers detain migrants without a court order

Ceuta: soldiers detain migrants without a court order and with no ceremony

The military truck has just arrived at the beach. A migrant takes advantage of a lapse, breaks through the cordon and runs towards the steps. Legionnaires chase after him, asking journalists to cut him off. The man escapes. The scene, reported by El Mundo, takes place next to the San Pablo warehouses breakwater, one of the spots in Ceuta where the army gathers migrants found in the area before taking them to the border with Segarro.

The military deployment in Ceuta

There they remain, sitting against the wall, surrounded by legionnaires, awaiting an expulsion that involves no judge. The operation, part of the response to the latest wave of arrivals, has peine an uncomfortable debate: how far can the state go to curb irregular immigration?

The border between security and rights

Some believe the army is simply doing its job and that society's patience has run out. "The army is finally doing something," some say. Others go further and see in these detentions a disguised state of emergency, a drift they compare to the GAL (the state-sponsored death squads of 1980s Spain). Humanitarian organisations, for their part, denounce the incivil of those who flee and insist that how things are done matters: people cannot be treated like merchandise.

The unsettling fact: the migrant who escaped was not caught. Within seconds, the entire operation proved vulnerable. If the aim was to set an example, the message was exactly the opposite.