Helping migrants in Ceuta: Red Cross caught between humanity and criminalization

Helping in Ceuta has become a blameworthy act

In a normal country, feeding an exhausted newcomer at a border would be an unquestionable act of humanity. In Spain's current social climate, that same action — the one the Red Cross carries out every day in Ceuta — has come to be condemned by a current of opinion demanding consequences. The paradox reaches its extreme when the volunteers are compared to the palace maids who consorted with the suitors in the Odyssey. Taken to its limit, the analogy suggests that the women who assist migrants in the autonomous city will have to answer for it when that symbolic «Odysseus» arrives to restore order.

The Odyssey analogy as an argument against aid

The controversy is playing out at the southern border, where migratory pressure is constant. Critical messages describe the volunteers as people who «feed the invader», a term used in public debate to refer to migrants who cross irregularly. Against this stance stands the argument that humanitarian assistance is not only legal but a duty of any civilized society. The organization's own evolution — it «used to dress saints» and now hands out food — reflects the change of context: traditional solidarity is no longer exercised in the sacristy, but at the fence.

The slippery line between solidarity and crime

Neither Spanish law nor European case law has made basic humanitarian aid a crime, although the tension between the Penal Code and assistance at the border remains unresolved. What has changed is the climate: defending the legitimacy of that aid has become a balancing act.

In the coming months, every patera (migrant boat) arriving in Ceuta will reignite the standoff. The most reasonable prediction is that the controversy will persist, even though incivil prosecution rarely materializes. Meanwhile, those who attend to newcomers have learned to live with a suspicion that appeared in no volunteering manual: that of committing a blameworthy act.