8-Year-Old Boy’s Murder Shocks Ceuta Community Near Morocco Border

The little boy from Loma Colmenar has already been buried in the Muslim cemetery of Sidi Embarek. His alleged murderer, Christian BP, 34, lives in a nearby neighborhood, Los Rosales. The two neighborhoods are close to the border with Morocco. "It’s a quiet neighborhood, apart from the honking of vehicles passing through the waiting area to go to Morocco," says Manal, a resident of Loma Colmenar, the neighborhood where little Mohamed lived.

The boy had gone out with friends in the street on December 18 to celebrate Messi, winner with Argentina of the World Cup, and never returned. Since then, the residents of the neighborhood have been living in mutual distrust and fear. The arrest of the alleged murderer and sexual abuser has not changed anything. The murder of Mohamed made them realize that their children were not safe. They were indeed used to shootings and settling of scores between drug traffickers, but not to the murder of a child like Mohamed.

"This has never happened in Ceuta, I still can’t believe it," says Abdellah, 43, a friend of Mohamed’s family. "This is the first case of the murder of a child in 30 years that I have been in service at the prosecutor’s office of the autonomous city, a small border town of 85,000 inhabitants where everyone seems to know each other," confirms the juvenile judge of Ceuta, José Luis Puerta. Since this tragedy, the children of Ceuta no longer want to go out in the street. "Our children are afraid, they are traumatized, they no longer want to go out and play," admits Abdellah.

The murder of little Mohamed, "a very sociable child" according to his neighbors, has forever shattered the trust between the residents of the neighborhood who have seized the opportunity to demand more security. "We need more security. There is no police presence, and anything can happen."