Family Seeks Answers in Teen Immigrant’s Death at Spanish Care Center

Khalid Mouamou, 18 years old, committed suicide on April 21, in his room at the group home in Guipúzcoa, according to the Ministry of Equality and Social Policy. For Gihane, the deceased’s sister, her brother took his own life because he was a victim of ill-treatment. "We are waiting for the autopsy, if it turns out that he suffered blows and injuries, we will take legal action," she told El Espanol.

"My brother immigrated to Spain more than two and a half years ago. He stayed in Algeciras, then in a center in Murcia, in Barcelona and in the Basque Country," said Gihane, who specifies that as an unaccompanied minor, her brother was placed under the guardianship of the provincial council which found him a foster home and helped him find a job to facilitate his social and professional adaptation in the Basque Country. But the young man committed a serious offense, leading the juvenile judge to decide, in December 2019, to commit him to the Ibaiondo center, a level 1 center where the conditions of detention are very difficult.

Khalid was locked up for a year in this center, confirms his sister, indicating that during this period, he had the support of the family who did everything to make sure he lacked nothing. "They asked me to visit the boy to see how he was doing. I went there twice, I brought him clothes and food, I found him physically well and he did not complain about anything. He told me that he was doing carpentry and taking cleaning courses," the imam of the town of Fuente Álamo, and close to the deceased’s family, told the newspaper.

In December 2020, the juvenile judge, having positively assessed the improvement in Khalid’s behavior, had ordered his transfer from the Ibaiondo center to a home in Guipúzcoa. The young man lived in this center with three other boys, under the direct supervision of a multidisciplinary team of monitors, psychologists and social workers. "My brother started doing activities and practicing a lot of sports: swimming, boxing, football..." says Gihane, who regularly called him on the phone. According to her, her brother was in good spirits and "had started the procedures with Immigration to obtain a residence permit and requested an appointment at the Moroccan consulate to obtain a birth certificate".