Ceuta Struggles to House 920 Unaccompanied Moroccan Minors Amid Migration Surge

A first group of 250 minors was housed at the Santa Amelia center, and another of 240 minors at the temporary hostel of Piniers. The rest are being held in hangars in Tarajal, near the border post, reports El Pais, which reports that the government delegation in Ceuta has already received more than 4,400 calls from members of Moroccan families looking for their children in Ceuta. According to government sources, the police and social welfare officers are doing "intense work" of identification in order to have data on these minors.

Since the beginning of this migration crisis, several underage migrants have been victims of rights violations denounced by civil society organizations. For his part, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who assured that the government would protect these minors, has nevertheless proceeded to repatriate some of them to Morocco.

This week, the juvenile court judge in Ceuta opened an investigation into these immediate returns of underage migrants to Morocco, carried out by the Spanish authorities during the migration crisis. According to Jose Luis Puerta, the regional prosecutor, this investigation concerns for the moment the case of Achraf, this 16-year-old teenager, sent back to Morocco twice during the crisis.