Aug 26, 4:02 PM
Recycled Myths and AI Tropes: How Fake Feline Massacres Took Over Ceuta
As border pressures mount in the Spanish enclave, internet agitators rely on imported rhetoric and fabricated images instead of facts.
Political rhetoric travels fast when fed by absurdity rather than substance. When 70,000 people crossed the border from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in late July, leaving between 2,000 and 5,000 migrants remaining in the territory, the scene was set for pressing debates on border management. Instead, social media delivered a bizarre echo of American political tropes.
On August 20, French Donald Trump supporter Nicolas Conquer declared on X that migrants in Ceuta were eating cats—a direct nod to claims made during the 2024 US presidential race regarding Haitian immigrants. Spanish conservative site La Gaceta had already run an article on August 19 alleging a post-invasion massacre of felines, pigeons, and seagulls. It featured a photo of a dead white kitten beside a dumpster. Local outlets like Ceuta Ahora and La Verdad de Ceuta quickly spread similar imagery.
The panic collapsed under basic verification. Fact-checking group Maldita established that neither photo came from Ceuta. The dead white kitten was photographed a year earlier in the Canary Islands, while the orange-and-white cat pictured elsewhere was taken in Balaguer, Catalonia, in October 2025. Undeterred, La Gaceta replaced its main photo with images of a dead pigeon, with the author claiming hungry migrants were devouring birds, though providing no supporting proof or source access.
Outright fabrication complemented recycled photos. An image claiming to show a migrant abusing a cat was revealed to be AI-generated. Traced to an El Pais video shot in Ceuta, the original showed a man holding a stick, which was digitally replaced with a feline. The edit carried a SynthID watermark, a marker developed by Google to flag AI alterations.
Local authorities and animal protection groups found no basis for the hysteria. The local branch of the Unified Association of the Civil Guard dismissed the rumors as false, noting an absence of authentic photos showing mistreated felines. Local charity Agrevice Ceuta, which cares for 500 feral cats, publicly rejected the claims. Its president, Eduardo Sanchez, reported that municipal workers found no evidence of harmed animals and confirmed that not a single cat in their care had disappeared.
When digital outrage relies on recycled provincial photos and artificial intelligence edits, it exposes a distinct lack of substance. In Ceuta, manufactured outrage merely distracted from the actual complexities of managing border surges.
Written by Sandy van Dongen sandy.vandongen@alpineweekly.com
