BOY IN THE DASHBOARD
How driver tried to smuggle child of 12 to Europe
THIS is the astonishing moment a 12-year-old African boy was found hidden inside a car’s dashboard by border guards.
The bewildered child needed medical treatment after being crammed into the tiny space in the BMW.
The driver, a 65-year-old Moroccan man, had been attempting to cross from Morocco into the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla. Spanish police have faced a spate of people- smuggling in recent months as migrants attempt to reach EU soil to claim asylum.
The boy in the dashboard was discovered on Friday when officers stopped the BMW X5 to inspect the car and check the driver’s documents.
A spokesman for the Spanish Civil Guard said: ‘A tiny detail aroused the suspicion of officers when a heartbeat sensor was passed over the car, a high- end vehicle in very good condition. The boy was found during an exhaustive search inside the dashboard. An officer felt the body of a person after introducing his hand and immediately ripped off part of the dashboard to remove and assist the human being, who turned out to be a young boy.’
The child, believed to be from Guinea in West Africa, was wearing only a pair of dirty shorts.
He was said to have been disoriented, and suffering breathing difficulties and numbness in his limbs. It is not known how long he had been hiding.
The driver was arrested and is expected to be remanded in custody after appearing before a judge. The case evoked memories of an incident two years ago in which a 19-year- old Moroccan woman tried to smuggle an eightyearold boy in a suitcase into Spain’s other North African territory, Ceuta. The enclaves, which are both autonomous cities on Morocco’s north coast, are Europe’s only land borders in Africa. Police in Ceuta and Melilla have previously found migrants crammed into tiny spaces in car engines and even inside car seats.
In October, Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, warned that people smugglers were risking the lives of migrants by hiding them on top of the engines of cars and lorries.