Dispute leaves minors stranded
Officials in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, face complications in reuniting worried Moroccan parents with hundreds of children and teenagers swept up in a diplomatic standoff between Madrid and Rabat over migration and the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
So far, authorities have confirmed that 438 unaccompanied minors were among more than 8000 people who arrived in Ceuta from Morocco between Tuesday and Thursday by scaling a border fence or swimming around it.
Social service workers were checking the ages of many more young people who were in shelters or roaming the streets, said Mabel Deu, a spokesperson for the autonomous city.
A hotline set up on Friday had received 4400 calls in its first 24 hours from desperate relatives seeking information, she said. Many of the inquiries were about minors.
‘‘Our goal is that they reunite with their parents as soon as possible,’’ Deu said.
Morocco has already taken back over 6600 of the migrants who made it to Ceuta. Entering the city put them in European Union territory. Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers
attempt to reach Europe from Africa each year.
Many of the anxious relatives calling the hotline are just a few kilometres across the border, in the Moroccan city of Fnideq. But stepped-up vigilance along the
8km border and the overwhelmed resources on the Spanish side are making the reunions difficult.
Fatima Zohra said other girls had encouraged her 14-year-old daughter to cross the border without her family’s knowledge. She
said she had seen her daughter in photos from inside a warehouse where Spanish officials are keeping the minors while they process them.
But reunions were proving difficult to bring about, Deu said.
Some children had told social services that they wanted to stay in Ceuta, even against their parents’ wishes.
The humanitarian crisis started as Morocco and Spain were at odds over Spain agreeing to provide Covid-19 care to a prominent Sahrawi leader fighting for the independence of Western Sahara, a territory once under Spanish control that Morocco annexed in the 1970s.
Moroccan authorities have denied that they encouraged this week’s mass migrant crossings to Ceuta. Officials have separately attributed the massive surge to favourable weather or troops being tired following Ramadan celebrations.
Adult migrants remaining in Ceuta are scattered between makeshift shelters and a migrant holding facility where some asylum seekers are taken. Many, especially Moroccans, are also roaming the streets, hiding from police patrols.
Sovereignty claims over the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla by Morocco have been an intermittent flashpoint between the Mediterranean neighbours. But relations dipped to a low this month over Spain’s decision to provide medical treatment to Brahim Ghali, who leads the Sahrawi’s fight against Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara.