The international organization Save the Children reports that unaccompanied minors in the Spanish enclaves in Morocco are living in a state of abandonment. The report follows the death of a Moroccan boy trying to smuggle his way to Spain from Ceuta.
Save the Children has denounced the state of abandonment experienced by unaccompanied foreign minors present in the Spanish enclaves in Morocco. "There are approximately 250 unaccompanied foreign minors who are in principle protected living in Ceuta and of these, at least 50 sleep on the streets, on the cliff face, or in abandoned boats or cars," the NGO explains.
"Some are under 10 years of age, their dream is to reach the peninsula and, generally speaking, to reunite with their relatives living in Europe. Each evening many of them try to board the ferries, a very high-risk practice as it can cost them their life," Save the Children adds.
In its last annual report, the NGO recalled how the Ombudsman denounced the lack of safeguards for foreign minors in Ceuta and Melilla, who are condemned to a kind of legal limbo until they turn 18 without job opportunities or the possibility of integration.
The death of Omar, a 16-year-old migrant
Save the Children's denouncement follows the death of a 16-year-old Moroccan, who was knocked over by a lorry in Ceuta on April 6. Prosecutors have ordered the arrest for voluntary manslaughter of the driver, J.M.M.V., from Ceuta, investigative sources say.
Omar,
from Agadir in Morocco, had been trying to sneak onto one of the vehicles that were to travel to Spain by ferry. A delegation of Save the Children, which was in the area to report on the situation of unaccompanied foreign minors locally, witnessed what happened. "Minutes earlier, the driver and his colleague were talking to the minor. Then our volunteers, who were with another group of youngsters, heard shouts, the noise of truck engines and confusion, and that is when the youngster was run over by the lorry," StC Spain director Andrés Cortes told TV broadcaster La Sexta.
Investigations
The investigating magistrate claims Omar was knocked over deliberately. One of the migrant children who was with him before the incident explained that the lorry driver had slapped him after catching him trying to hide in a vehicle. Then, when the two tried to escape, J.M.M.V. allegedly followed them in his vehicle. The boy says he managed to hide, but Omar ended up under the wheels. The magistrate allegedly dismissed the driver's version of events, according to which the boy was trying to steal from the lorry.