Abascal stirs fear with Ceuta and presents a Spain condemned to "insecurity, rapes, looting, and diseases"

Santiago Abascal has turned this Thursday the sexual assaults reported in Ceuta into fuel for his campaign against immigration. The far-right leader has used facts that require protection for victims, police investigation, and judicial guarantees to spread suspicion over tens of thousands of people and present the autonomous city as a preview of a Spain ravaged by crime and disease.

"Perhaps, now, the most advanced Spain of what the future holds for us," he wrote about Ceuta. His prognosis includes "insecurity, rapes, looting, imported diseases, devastated public health, and massive squatting," a list that lumps together reported crimes, welfare problems, and prejudices against those who arrived from Morocco.

Abascal has also threatened that those who, according to him, have "sold and mistreated" Ceuta will have to "pay for their betrayal." The city and the victims are thus subjected to Vox's usual framework, built around invasion, the internal enemy, and a catastrophic future that only the far-right claims to be able to prevent.

The figures that Abascal turns into a block

The seriousness of the known complaints is beyond dispute. The Ceuta Area Prosecutor's Office has reported 13 complaints formally filed judicially until August 17, three corresponding to underage victims and ten to adult women. Most of the procedures remain provisionally archived because the complainants could not identify their alleged aggressors, although they can be reopened if new elements appear.

The data also offers a reality that completely disappears from Abascal's discourse. Almost all victims are foreigners without legal residence in Ceuta, and many arrived during the massive entry in late July. Among the alleged perpetrators, irregular foreigners also predominate, with at least two Spaniards according to the response provided by the Prosecutor's Office.

Migrant women appear, therefore, among those who have suffered the violence that Vox uses to attack immigration en masse. Abascal avoids this distinction and presents all newcomers as a threat to Ceutans, although a large part of the victims belong to the same human group that he demands be fully returned to Morocco.

The cases that already have identified alleged perpetrators are following their judicial course. The information communicated by the High Court of Justice of Andalusia recorded, up to August 12, three procedures for sexual assaults. Two ended with the investigated individuals in provisional prison and the third, referring to touching an adult woman, with an expulsion order. The three victims were also migrants.

Abascal took another step in the afternoon by sharing information from 'La Gaceta', a newspaper linked to Vox's Disenso Foundation. The headline states that the Police confirm gang rapes of 10 and 14-year-old girls, alleged words from doctors, and the hospitalization of four male minors.

The published content lacks an official police statement, a known police report, or a judicial resolution that publicly supports all these details. The information attributes the statements to a spokeswoman for Jupol, one of the police unions, although the headline directly elevates them to a confirmation by the National Police. Abascal reproduced the message without introducing any caution and accompanied it with a new request to expel all people arriving from Morocco.

From the complaint to the narrative of crimes against humanity

Vox's offensive has also reached the Cádiz Prosecutor's Office. The party demands that all sexual assaults reported since July 30 be investigated jointly and proposes that the possible existence of crimes of sexual assault, criminal organization, hate, and crimes against humanity be studied.

The brief requests the creation of a single list of complaints, the incorporation of archived procedures, the comparison of genetic profiles obtained during forensic examinations, and the analysis of coincidences in dates, places, and methods of operation. It also asks to track the digital channels used to organize the border crossing and to check if messages encouraging the aggressions were disseminated through them.

The Prosecutor's Office will have to determine if there are real connections between the cases. Their temporal coincidence with the massive entry does not in itself prove an organized pattern, the same authorship, or coordination among the alleged aggressors. Each complaint also retains its own victims, circumstances, and evidence.

The far-right Vox has elevated the accusation to crimes against humanity, one of the most serious offenses in the Penal Code. Article 607 bis requires that the acts be part of a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population. This classification appears for now only in the ultra-right party's brief and lacks any recognition by the Prosecutor's Office or the courts.

Jorge Buxadé has presented the aggressions as an alleged act of "sexual terror," "domination," and "hybrid warfare." From the Port of Algeciras, the Andalusian leader Manuel Gavira added that the Government acts like a "mafia" and linked the situation in Ceuta with the possible deterioration of tourism in Andalusia.

Vox's sudden concern for the violence suffered by women and girls clashes with its entire political trajectory. It was the only party that voted against the renewal of the State Pact against Gender Violence, approved in February 2025 with 315 votes in favor and 33 against. The party itself continues to demand the repeal of the comprehensive law and the suspension of the pact.

The victims now occupy the center of their messages because Vox can associate the crimes with immigration. Their nationalities, their vulnerability, and their right to receive protection disappear as soon as they complicate the narrative. Abascal has publicly asked what the Government is waiting for to "return them all to Morocco." That "all" also includes many of the assaulted women and girls it uses as ammunition.