Only one person in Spain has lost their job following the illegal African invasion of the enclave of Ceuta. It was neither the head of the border guard nor anyone in the government.
The website of Spain’s Department of National Security (DSN) is conspicuously devoid of press releases about the 72,000 Africans who stormed Ceuta before the weekend.
The official figure was significantly revised upwards yesterday by Spain’s Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska. Ceuta’s autonomous authorities claim that as many as 80,000 people entered the enclave.
On Thursday 30 July, the figure was estimated at 49,000.
That was when the DSN’s female Head of Communications raised the alarm by publishing the following news bulletin on the department’s website:
The factual content was correct. Nevertheless, the publication was removed shortly afterwards and is no longer available on the DSN’s website.
The day after it was published, the woman was dismissed with immediate effect, on the very day she was due to begin her summer holiday. The incident did not become public knowledge until Monday evening.
The DSN is an integral part of the Spanish Government’s executive office and falls under the Prime Minister’s Office in Madrid.
The news bulletin reporting what had happened in Ceuta was unwelcome on the department’s website. (Screenshot: dsn.gob.es via El País)
According to El Español’s source within the state administration, the reason the woman was dismissed was that the information “was intended for internal use only”.
The woman previously worked for Spain’s Ministry of Defence and has been employed by the DSN since 2018. There, she was responsible for publishing content on the department’s website and social media channels.
This particular news item, however, proved too politically sensitive for the department.
On the very day that an endless stream of foreigners poured across Spain’s border by land and sea, in a scene reminiscent of Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints, the DSN instead published a post on planning for accidents involving hazardous substances, earthquakes, volcanoes, civil protection, severe weather, forest fires, flooding, and the dangers associated with transporting hazardous goods by road.
Nothing has been published since.
The government’s and intelligence services’ inadequate preparedness has so far resulted in no other dismissals.
Before the Head of Communications was dismissed, the DSN’s digital channels had been updated with information several times a day, including during crisis situations, according to El Español.