Moroccan Teen Forced onto Spanish Streets after Aging Out of Migrant Center

From Morocco to Spain, the chaotic journey of Abdellatif Bouhlal. At the age of 15, he made a perilous sea voyage from the kingdom on a makeshift boat to reach the Iberian peninsula. Upon arrival, he was placed in a reception center for unaccompanied minors. He will spend three years there. When he turns 18, he is forced to leave the center and find his own housing. "On the very day of my 18th birthday, they threw me out on the street like a dog," Bouhlal told Reuters from a makeshift tent on the beach of El Cabron, in the town of Arinaga. Since then, there are no other options but to sleep on the street and beg to survive. According to his explanations, the authorities are slow to process the documents he needs as a foreigner to be able to work in Spain.

A harsh reality for the native of Beni Mellal, who explains that he left his country because he sees no future there. The young Moroccan has only a bare mattress, a cardboard box containing clothes and a few candles. On windy nights, he covers his head with a blanket to protect his eyes from the blowing sand. He misses his mother terribly. He hasn’t seen her in 3 and a half years. "Not being able to talk to her, it really hurts," laments the one who has no mobile phone.

Today, Bouhlal faces a dilemma. He wonders whether to spend the money earned by begging on food or bus fare to go to Las Palmas, the capital of the island, to have appointments with the officials in charge of his residence file.