Ceuta Grapples with Humanitarian Crisis as Hundreds of Migrant Minors Remain Stranded

What will become of the migrant minors in Ceuta? This is the big dilemma facing the Spanish authorities. Of about a thousand, according to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, they are wandering the streets or being housed in centers run by local authorities.
Government officials had estimated that among the migrants who arrived, about 1,500 were under 18 years old, but María Isabel Deu said the municipality could not confirm this figure.

On Friday, 438 children and adolescents were registered in two municipal centers, where they were housed and fed after being tested for Covid-19, and a third center was being set up, the official said. But many others, probably hundreds, were roaming the streets, sleeping outdoors in parks or on benches. Almost all of them have no money and do not speak a word of Spanish.

Some came alone, while others crossed the border with older friends or brothers. The vast majority are boys, teenagers or young men in their twenties. Sometimes, despair takes over. A young migrant, whose age is unknown, tried on Friday to hang himself with a metal cable on the Ceuta promenade. He was revived just in time by the police, alerted by a passer-by.

For their part, the authorities of this small town of 84,000 inhabitants have called on the 17 regions of the country to show solidarity. "We can’t do it, there are too many children," another member of the local government, Carlos Rontomé Romero, had said earlier in the week. "We are the border, we are the dike, but our capacities are limited. We are a small town of 19 square kilometers," he said in an interview with Spanish national radio. Since then, 200 unaccompanied minors who were already housed in Ceuta have been distributed to various regions of Spain in order to make room for the new arrivals.