Unaccompanied Moroccan Teen Shares Struggles of Migration to Spain on National TV

Facing the camera, the young Moroccan Mohammed declared: "I am one of those children you call MENA (unaccompanied foreign minor)". At 14 years old, Mohammed left Morocco on board a makeshift boat, for Spain, abandoning parents and friends to "find a better future".

Once on Spanish soil, the young Moroccan was disappointed. "When I arrived, I didn’t speak the language. The young people like me insulted me and made fun of me. I felt very bad (...) people looked at me like I was an insect," he said to H24info.

For some time now, the controversy over unaccompanied minors in Spain has been gaining momentum. Last Saturday, a neo-Nazi group demonstrated, chanting "MENA out of our streets". This was an opportunity for the young Moroccan to appeal to the conscience of the young people invited to the studio. "(...) before judging a person for their skin color, race or money, you should put yourself in their shoes. He continued: "if you had been in my place, at 14, would you have been able to leave your loved ones to seek a better future?".

The Spanish government has announced that each Moroccan minor to be repatriated will be the subject of analysis, under the law which provides that the family members or the child protection services be located to be held responsible, with for the minor, the right to be heard during the judicial procedure, indicated the same source.

The Spanish and Moroccan governments have been seeking a solution to this issue for years. In April 2019, based on an agreement signed between Rabat and Madrid in 2012, a process of repatriating unaccompanied Moroccan minors had been launched, recalls the same source.