Spanish Army commander accuses Open Arms of liaising with people-smuggling mafias

Spanish Army commander accuses Open Arms of «contacting mafias» to bring in migrants

On 28 August, on Telemadrid's programme 'El Análisis del Diario de la Noche', Spanish Army commander Inmaculada Antúnez Olivas launched a direct accusation against the NGO Open Arms: according to her, the organisation contacts «the heads of the mafias trafficking in irregular migrants via satellite» to facilitate their entry into Europe. Her statement came one day after Santiago Abascal called for the NGO's ship to be confiscated and sunk, describing it as a «slave ship».

Antúnez, a logistics commander with a doctorate in human rights and an expert in jihadist financing, is one of the most respected voices in her field. The programme asked whether incivil were slipping in among the migrants arriving in small boats from Algeria. The commander's response was an accusation of direct connivance with trafficking networks.

Reactions were not long in coming. On one side, those who see her words as a necessary denunciation of a multimillion-euro business: human trafficking. They point out that Open Arms picks up migrants just a few kilometres off the Libyan coast and transports them to Spain, more than 1,000 kilometres away, which some see as disguised trafficking. On the other side, there are those who argue that the real problem is state permissiveness and that the commander should investigate the role of Spain's intelligence service, the CNI, or of previous governments, not just the NGO. The case of Helena Maleno, an activist investigated for collaborating with mafias, is also recalled.

What is being debated here is far more than an isolated accusation: it is the tension between the narrative of solidarity and that of security, with the mafias in between. The commander has focused attention on an NGO funded by public money and donations, which for some is a «racket». Others demand evidence and point out that previous investigations already flagged suspicious navigation patterns. Meanwhile, Open Arms keeps on rescuing, and the debate over whether they are angels or accomplices remains open.

The irony is that those who denounce the mafias are usually the first to close the ports. And those who carry out rescues are the first to be accused of collaborating with them. In this, as in everything, everyone chooses their own narrative.