Moroccan Parents Overwhelmingly Prefer Children Stay in Spain Amid Ceuta Migration Crisis

Among the 4,400 calls received from Moroccan parents searching for their children, 92.5% of parents prefer their children to stay in Spain "for socio-economic, family reasons, lack of money, poverty, the cost of medicines...", reports El Faro de Ceuta.

In accordance with the procedures, the Child Protection Service, assisted by the NGO Save The Children, has already conducted more than 150 personal interviews with children and adolescents to gather some personal information, including their age. This avoids subjecting them to unnecessary radiological tests and accelerates the procedures in order to quickly establish contact with their families.

"In the reunification procedures, we not only need to verify affiliation, but also assess the risks of contact, the viability of the return and the consent of the parents and minors. We are responsible for these minors and we cannot hand them over to the police, let alone the agents who for two weeks have been asking them to leave the country without conditions," explains the head of the Minors Zone of the city of Ceuta.

Already 920 unaccompanied minors have been heard by the local police and distributed in several centers: 171 boys and 67 girls in Piniers, 245 boys in the Santa Amelia sports center and 364 others in hangars near Tarajal.