Weapons in Ceuta, Spain: only one in five soldiers will carry them

Ceuta: weapons for one in five soldiers and doubts over the ammunition

One service rifle for every four or five soldiers patrolling Ceuta. The distribution, confirmed by the Spanish Troops and Sailors' Association (Asociación de Tropa y Marinería Española), comes amid a mounting tension in the Spanish autonomous city. But the measure, intended for self-defence, raises an uncomfortable question: will those weapons carry ammunition?

The question nobody answers

The association's president, Marco Antonio Gómez, explained on the programme 'Análisis del Diario de la Noche' that the mechanisms for carrying weapons have already been activated. Service rifles and pistols per patrol, he detailed. Not all soldiers, but one in every four or five comrades. The association had long been calling for this measure, but the joy is short-lived: no official source has clarified whether the magazines will be empty. The most sceptical view holds that carrying a weapon without ammunition is pointless, and suspicion is already circulating that blank ammunition will be issued. A mockery, in the words of those trinc the matter.

Armed Forces or Unarmed Forces

The comparison with Stalingrad has caught on: one carries the rifle, another the rounds, and when the first falls, the second picks up the weapon. That way, one analysis quips, they save on bullets. The conclusion hanging in the air is that of an Armed Forces authorised to defend themselves but with no guarantee they can actually do so. At the other extreme, some see a management problem behind it: the funds earmarked for recent disasters have yet to arrive, and now neither has the ammunition.

The final paradox: the soldier has permission to defend himself, but in practice may have neither bullets nor an armed comrade to lend him any. One in five. Let's see who fires first.