Red Cross Volunteer Faces Online Backlash After Comforting Migrant in Ceuta

Her name is Luna Reyes. This young rescuer, a volunteer with the Spanish Red Cross, appeared in a photo with a black migrant. This earned her all kinds of criticism and harassment. In the viral photo on social media, we see a Senegalese migrant being comforted in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

Explaining her humanitarian gesture, the young woman indicates that she did "the most normal thing one can do" and gave him a little water when she saw that he was tired. "He was crying, I reached out and he hugged me. He clung to me. This embrace was his lifebuoy," she testified, assuming her act.

An explanation that failed to stop the acts of harassment from supporters of the Spanish far-right party Vox and several other people opposed to the arrival of migrants in Ceuta.

"They saw that the person I was comforting was black, they kept insulting me and telling me horrible and racist things. We are not trained to live through something like this," denounced Luna Reyes on the Spanish television channel RTVE. On social media, the hashtag #GraciasLuna "thank you Luna" was launched in reaction to support this rescuer forced to go private on social media to explain her motivation.