Hundreds of Moroccan Migrant Minors Still Stranded in Ceuta After 2021 Crisis

"Today, I am happy, much more than when I was in Ceuta a year ago," confides Mohamed C. to Cadena Ser. He is one of the young Moroccan migrants who entered Sebta en masse on May 17, 18 and 19 last year, causing an unprecedented migration crisis. This young man from Fnideq, then 14 years old, recounts his misadventure. "It was very dangerous, it was very hard. When I remember it, I start to cry. I spent three days sleeping on the street...," he says.

The next day of his arrival, the Red Cross took him to the Tarajal warehouses, where he spent a week "sleeping on the ground", then was taken to a sports center where he spent several months before being transferred to the La Esperanza Center. He was enrolled in school in Ceuta in October at the Siete Colinas institute and since March 25, has been living in a minor center on the peninsula.

To read: Hundreds of Moroccan Migrant Children Still in Ceuta a Year After Crisis

Mohamed will blow out his 16 candles next July. He dreams of becoming "a policeman or a doctor". He has kept in touch with other minors who have also been transferred from Ceuta to Madrid, Murcia or the Basque Country. He also communicates every day with his parents, he assures. "I miss my family, but I know it will be better for me here and I will be able to help them, especially my little sister who is sick," he says.

"No one wants to stay in Ceuta. Everyone wants to leave for the peninsula to earn a living," says Mohamed, stressing that 318 minors continue to be under the guardianship of Ceuta, according to official sources, that several others continue to wander the streets of the autonomous city, near the port, waiting for the slightest opportunity to reach the peninsula, and that 55 others have been "illegally" expelled to Morocco, in violation of children’s rights.