The most dangerous sentence in a migration crisis is the one that removes the victim.

That is what bothered me about some of the reporting and social-media commentary surrounding sexual assaults in Ceuta after the July 30 mass crossing. A headline can say that sexual assaults are rising after tens of thousands of migrants arrived and be technically tethered to a real concern. But if it does not tell readers who the victims are, it can create an entirely different story in their minds.

The available evidence is more complicated. Reuters reported on August 18 that Spain’s largest police union, SUP, said 15 sexual assaults of varying severity had been reported in Ceuta since July 30, and that a significant majority of the victims were minors. Reuters also reported that Spain’s National Police and Interior Ministry declined to confirm the union’s total. Three days later, Human Rights Watch reported that Ceuta’s public prosecutor’s office had received 13 sexual-assault cases between July 30 and August 17, with most victims not resident in the city.

Those figures should not be collapsed into a single statistic. A police-union count, a prosecutor’s caseload, a health-service tally, and a set of court proceedings represent different forms of evidence. Good reporting keeps the source and status attached to every number.

Then comes the detail that changes the frame. By August 12, Ceuta’s judicial authorities had processed three sexual-assault cases involving migrant women who were allegedly assaulted by Moroccan migrants arriving during the mass influx. Two of the victims were minors. In other words, some of the clearest court-documented victims were migrants themselves.

Reuters also interviewed women sleeping near the overcrowded reception centre who described harassment and fear of assault by men around the improvised camps. Human-rights organisations warned that migrant women and girls were extremely vulnerable because of unsafe sleeping arrangements, inadequate privacy, and insufficient protected accommodation.

There was also a separate case involving a local Ceuta woman. A migrant entered a private home and climbed into her bed in his underwear. A judge ordered his deportation on a breaking-and-entering charge. That is serious. It is also not the same as saying that the confirmed sexual-assault cases primarily involved local Spanish girls attacked by newly arrived migrants.

This distinction should be basic journalism. It is not political correctness. It is subject, verb, and object.

Who was assaulted? Who is accused? Which authority confirmed the case? Which number represents an allegation, which a union estimate, and which a court proceeding? If those questions disappear, the audience is left to fill in the gaps with whatever story it already expects to be true.

Migration stories are particularly vulnerable to this distortion because scale itself creates fear. At least 72,000 people crossed into a city of about 84,000 residents on July 30. Most were young men, and by August 28, Reuters reported that roughly 5,000 to 8,000 people remained in Ceuta. The visual impression was enormous. Once that image takes hold, a loosely written crime headline can convert population shock into collective suspicion almost instantly.

That is unfair to local residents with legitimate security concerns, because exaggerated claims are easy to discredit and can make real problems harder to discuss. It is also unfair to migrant women and girls, because those most vulnerable to sexual violence can disappear inside a narrative that presents migrants only as the source of danger.

Both groups deserve better than propaganda.

Ceuta does have a real safety problem. The reception centre was over capacity. Women were sleeping outside beside men they did not know. Police and social services were scrambling. Spain’s health minister said five women had received medical treatment for sexual violence; Human Rights Watch later reported that four emergency-room doctors said they had treated two women and six girls for sexual assault or rape. Courts and prosecutors were processing cases. None of this is a reason to minimise the crisis.

They are reasons to describe it accurately.

Accuracy also changes the policy response. If the problem is framed primarily as foreign men attacking local girls, the obvious response becomes more policing of migrants. If the evidence shows that migrant women and girls are also among the principal victims, then protected accommodation, gender-separated sanitation, child protection, lighting, staffed shelters, and rapid registration become security measures too.

A distorted story therefore does not merely produce distorted public opinion. It can produce the wrong operational response.

This is especially important when a figure such as “15 sexual assaults” begins circulating. The responsible response is not to suppress it, but to keep its status attached: SUP said 15 assaults had been reported; Reuters reported that the National Police and Interior Ministry declined to confirm the union’s total; Ceuta prosecutors later told Human Rights Watch they had received 13 sexual-assault cases through August 17; courts had already processed specific cases; and several of the clearest court-documented victims were migrants. Different numbers can all be accurate while answering different questions.

That takes more words than a viral headline. Reality usually does.

I do not think the public needs to be protected from ugly facts about crimes committed during migration crises. I think the public needs those ugly facts in the correct order. Ceuta is serious enough without inventing a simpler version of it.