"An invader with diabetes" in 'El Español'

BarcelonaIf the other day we had to congratulate the journalist María Peral and El Español for their exclusive on the police report that pointed to Morocco for the Ceuta crisis, this Friday another journalist, Laura Garófano, has perpetrated a pitiful headline. This one: "The death of an invader with diabetes and the flight of another with chickenpox, the latest symptoms of the Ceuta health crisis". First of all, there is the use of the term "invader" to refer to the migrants who entered Ceuta. The media outlet can hide behind the fact that the RAE dictionary has a definition of invade –"to break in, to enter by force"– that could fit the case, but it is evident that the use of the word is not neutral; it seeks to dehumanize the migrants, strip them of any individual dignity, and present them collectively as a threat. That is why at ARA we would never use this word.

Because what everyone understands by invader is not just someone who enters by force or irregularly into a place, but someone who intends to occupy that territory. That is to say, true invaders are the Russian soldiers who have occupied parts of Ukraine, not the poor people who have risked their lives at sea (let us remember that there were 140 deaths) to enter Europe. Then it turns out that one of these supposed invaders, only 17 years old, by the way, had diabetes and died. Then, the slightest human and journalistic sensitivity dictates that the news should be the death of a minor, and the fact that there have not been the means in Ceuta to attend to him properly. But what follows from the headline is that this death is only a "symptom" of something much more important, a possible health crisis in Ceuta that, then yes, would affect the "nationals". In other words, they are not only invaders, but a health hazard, like any plague of rats. And with plagues, especially if they are invasive, it is well known that there is only one solution.