To war with blunt weapons. Spain is in shock following the ramming of a civil guard dinghy by a powerful narcos motorboat which caused the death of two officers and the wounding of two others last night in the port of Barbate, in Cadiz. The images of the chase in a video relaunched on social media are dramatic: six narco-boats enter the harbor to seek shelter from the Karlota storm and come across the fragile single-engine Zodiac, with six civil guards sent for identification on board. Some motor launches disperse, while a 14 meter superboat, amid the shouts of incitement from some witnesses from the pier, heads at full speed towards the police boat and, after a head-on impact, first literally flies over the dinghy, then he returns to it and finally runs away. The victims of the special diving and rapid action groups of the civil guard were 43 and 39 years old and left three children orphaned. Of the two injured officers, one had an arm amputated by the propeller of the narco-launch.
«It was a full-blown, premeditated murder», declared the provincial commander. The arrests of eight drug trafficking offenders, accused of having been part of the murderous crew, were not enough to contain the “anger and indignation” expressed by various civil guard associations, which in a joint note called for “immediate and vigorous measures or the resignation of the Minister of the Interior”, Fernando Grande-Marlaska. Having arrived in Cadiz, the minister promised “zero impunity” against narcos, and more resources and men to fight “criminal and murderous organisations”, while political controversies mount and affect the entire government. Messages of “deep condolences” from Prime Minister Sanchez and the monarchs Felipe VI and Letizia were immediate, with recognition of the “great work” carried out by the security forces against drug trafficking. «An unequal fight», for the chief prosecutor of Cadiz, Angel Nunez, who denounced the “absolute inferiority” of the police forces and the judicial police in the fight against drug traffickers. Which, moreover, «due to the bottleneck in the courts for a 19th century procedural system, with eternal trials”, despite the arrests “they return to freedom”. The civil guard unions for their part point the finger at the “suicidal intervention” of those who gave the order to chasing the narcos with a dinghy in the midst of the storm, “knowing that it was not the first time that the narco-lances hit patrol boats”. In the continuous chases in the nearby Strait of Gibraltar, a handful of kilometers from Morocco, since at least 2016 12 people died, mostly traffickers crews. In recent years Barbate has become one of the main drug access gateways into Europe, together with the northern ports of Aversa and Rotterdam, as reported by the latest Undoc report, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Especially after the nearby Field of Gibraltar and the port of Algeciras became less accessible to narcos, following the declaration of a ‘Zone of Special Singularity’ in 2018 by the Madrid government, which mobilized important resources in the battle against the drug trafficking. Not only does hashish arrive in Spain from the Moroccan shores on powerful motorboats, capable of flying at 70 knots an hour compared to the 30 knots of the security forces’ vehicles, and which cover the Strait of Gibraltar in a few minutes with a shuttle continues. But also a river of cocaine coming from Central and South America. The government of Andalusia, led by PP-Vox, is calling for the Cadiz area to also be declared an ‘Area of Special Singularity’. While the leader of the opposition People’s Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, joined the chorus of voices demanding “responsibility at the highest levels”.