Hundreds of children stranded amid Spain and Morocco border scrap
With border crossings of migrants apparently under control, Spain and Morocco turned their attention yesterday to the plight of hundreds of teenagers and children stranded on both sides of their frontier amid one of the biggest diplomatic spats between the two countries in recent years.
The risks facing youths caught in the middle of the rift remained visible even as the flow of migrants that Morocco let cross over into Spain’s North Africa enclave of Ceuta appeared to have stopped.
Spanish police recovered the body of a young man from Mediterranean surf near Ceuta’s Tarajal beach, the European soil many Moroccans and other Africans tried to reach by swimming around the border that separates the city from Morocco. Another young man was confirmed dead in the water on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of unaccompanied minors were crammed into charity-run warehouses for a 10-day compulsory coronavirus quarantine under police watch. Spain’s Interior Ministry said 850 migrants under 18 years old were left of those who had crossed since Tuesday.
Looking for some extra clothes to protect himself from the evening cold, a 14-year-old boy who had stayed in the warehouse explained that his parents had agreed to his attempt to start a life in Spain.
“They see that if I come here I can have a future,” said the boy, who had traveled from Tetouan, a city les) south of the Spanish border. “You see your parents can’t work, the education system is very weak. What can I say? I cannot even tell you what people eat.”
The Associated Press is not using the boy’s name. It doesn’t normally name children without permission from their parents, and the identity of his parents couldn’t be obtained.
It appears that other children crossed without their parents’ knowledge.
One 18-year-old boy, who had been in Ceuta for a year, said he was called by his parents to help search for his younger brother, who had come over in the recent surge without his parent’s consent.
A 15-year-old boy from Fnideq, the town just across the frontier, told the AP that he had crossed on Tuesday when Moroccan police announced that the border was open.
“The Moroccans told us, go go, pass pass, they let us cross. I was just swimming and I saw people crossing so I went too,” he said from inside a holding pen with other youngsters.
“They have us locked as if we were in a prison. Morocco was a prison and Spain is now also a prison.”
The Spanish Government has announced that 200 of the young migrants who were already in the city of 85,000 before this week’s sudden surge in arrivals would be transferred to the mainland in coming days in order to leave space in Governmentrun facilities in Ceuta. Under Spain’s laws, the minors remain under the care of regional authorities until their relatives can be found or they come of age.
Municipal authorities for Ceuta set up a hotline for the parents on the Moroccan side who are missing their children and believe them to be in the Spanish city.
The situation was also chaotic across the border in Fnideq, where people roamed the streets begging for food or money to return to their hometowns after they were expelled from Ceuta or stopped at the border. Moroccan authorities sent buses to pick up some people and take them to Casablanca.
Moroccan security forces clashed with dozens of mostly young men who had gathered on a boulevard leading to the border with Spain, and were hoping to follow the thousands who in previous days swam around or jumped the border fences.
In previous days, the border between Morocco and Ceuta became porous following warnings from the Moroccan Government to Spain that it would face consequences over Madrid’s decision to provide coronavirus treatment to Brahim Ghali, head of the Polisario Front, a militant group fighting for the independence of the Western Sahara region annexed by Rabat.
Ghali flew into Spain in mid-April with an Algerian passport that had a false identity.
In an apparent attempt to move toward mending relations, Spanish security forces said their Moroccan counterparts agreed yesterday to establish a system for the return of the migrants. Publicly, however, the dispute went on.
“The Spanish media’s hostility towards Morocco, based on fake news, cannot obscure the real origin of the crisis, which is the reception by Madrid under a false identity of the leader of the separatist militias of the Polisario,” Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said. Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles said the country won’t accept being pressured with “the use of minors”.
“We are not going to accept being blackmailed.”
Spain said more than 8000 people crossed into Spanish territory in 48 hours, although at least 6000 had been expelled, many in bulk pushbacks criticised by rights groups. Many of those who crossed also returned voluntarily after finding no shelter in Ceuta or possibilities to continue to the European mainland.