Two Moroccan children play by the ships of the Tarajal, in Ceuta, on May 20, 2021. (Photo: Antonio Sempere / Europa Press via Getty Images)
The Child Protection Service of Ceuta has already contacted 79 Moroccan families who have unaccompanied children welcomed in the autonomous city after the massive irregular entry on May 17 and 18, but only six, 7.5%, they have shown interest in having the minors return home; the rest have been in favor of the minors staying in Spanish territory, as indicated by sources from the Minors’ Area of the regional Executive to Europa Press.
The National Police has so far reviewed 920 children and adolescents from the neighboring country and last Friday they began to perform radiological age determination tests on those without any documentation about which there are doubts that they are really under 18 years old.
The technicians of the Minors’ Area and the NGO Save The Children have carried out nearly 200 personal interviews this week, through which they have obtained documentation of 80 that will allow to avoid carrying out tests and have contacted 79 mothers and fathers that, in their vast majority and with six exceptions, they have alleged “socio-economic reasons” to reject family reunification with their descendants in Morocco.
Three “unsuccessful” attempts
Officials of the autonomous city have made three attempts to deliver minors to their parents that have been “unsuccessful.” In the first case, a teenager said she had accessed Ceuta outside of the days when the migration crisis unleashed by Morocco was concentrated, for which the security forces of the neighboring country denied her access to their territory.
In two others, the agents of the Alawite Kingdom did not facilitate the parents’ direct contact with the two children …
This article originally appeared on The HuffPost and has been updated.
