Moroccan Minors Flee Shelters in Ceuta, Fearing Deportation to Morocco

Dozens of Moroccan minors from the Santa Amelia sports center have fled out of fear of being repatriated and are now wandering the streets. "We will hold out until the returns are over and then we will continue to look for an opportunity to cross the strait, or we will return to the centers," said one of them, Mokhlis, to El Diario.

To read: Dozens of Moroccan Migrant Minors Flee Ceuta Center to Avoid Repatriation

These escapees from the children’s centers add to the other minors who for months have been sleeping under the stars in the port area, in public gardens and begging in front of supermarkets. They deplore the poor living conditions in the centers. "With the Red Cross, we were better off because the SAMU is more than an army," ironizes Ismaël. "At Santa Amelia, they wake you up at 7 a.m. to take a bath and have breakfast, then free time until 1:30 p.m. for lunch, the same until the snack and dinner," he adds, specifying that the free time consisted of staying on a futsal field and its stands with about 200 young people without the possibility of seeing the sun.

To read: Unaccompanied Moroccan Minors Flee Ceuta Centers to Avoid Repatriation

"We live better on the street," says Mokhlis, who does not envisage a return to Morocco. "In my country, there may be work, but we don’t have the right to study, to get medical care and to have social success if we don’t have connections," explains Saïd, another minor.

All these minors, originally from Tetouan, mostly dream of joining the city of Barcelona or Madrid. They do not lose hope and assure that their parents advise them not to return to Morocco. Yet the local authorities claim that thousands of families in Morocco are demanding their children back.