Spain’s Ceuta appeals for urgent aid with unaccompanied migrant minors

Spain’s Ceuta territory on Wednesday appealed for urgent government assistance to help deal with the hundreds of unaccompanied children still in the enclave following an influx of migrants.

Most of the 72,000 people who rushed into the North African enclave last week have returned to Morocco, but about 2,500 thousand remain.

This includes around 1,100 minors who arrived before and during the influx and cannot be summarily deported.

Groups of young children could be seen in the streets of Ceuta on Wednesday, gathering in parks and beaches as the authorities worked to identify and accommodate them.

Local officials have described the situation as “unsustainable” adding that the youngsters are enduring dire conditions with limited access to food, water, shelter, and sanitation.

They are calling on the government to transfer the children to mainland Spain.

Ceuta’s leader Juan Jesus Vivas, of the main opposition Popular Party (PP), said there was “a high risk for order and public security” as reception centres were overwhelmed.

But while regional governments are obliged to assist overstretched territories in an emergency, it is not certain that all will agree.

Redistribution of the young migrants is likely to meet resistance from four regions governed by the conservative PP and the anti-immigration, far-right Vox party.

Socialist deputy prime minister Carlos Cuerpo insisted on public television that the PP and its regional governments “must comply with the law just like everyone else”.

The government’s top official in Ceuta, Miguel Angel Perez, said the youngsters were “a priority, a source of great concern”.

Spain’s ministry for youth and children has announced $29 million in emergency funding for Ceuta to help the tiny territory of 84,000 inhabitants to care for the minors.

Spanish legal authorities raised the death toll from last week’s incident to 78 after a body was recovered late on Wednesday.

Morocco’s interior ministry on Sunday said 11 people had died on the Moroccan side of the border.