Migrant minors in Ceuta: the Government activates a reception plan after neighborhood pressure

After twenty days sleeping outdoors, protected by neighborhood associations that have filled the void of the administrations, the unaccompanied migrant minors who entered Ceuta during the mass crossing are being welcomed in emergency centers. It is the first phase of a shock plan that the Ministry of Youth and Children, led by Sira Rego, claims to be working on, which includes subsequently, in weeks or months, a formula for NGOs to develop reception in resources on the Peninsula, without the need to transfer the guardianship of the adolescents to the autonomous communities. The figure that Infancia handles, although it may vary during the process, is half a thousand minors. The Ceuta Government, which was caught by surprise by the announcement, claims to be unaware of the possible transfer.

The ultimatum given by the neighborhood associations on the outskirts of Ceuta has borne fruit. Yesterday morning, about 400 minors were following a sports court in the El Príncipe neighborhood outdoors, without minimum sanitary conditions. Hafida Mustafa, in charge of the improvised camp in which there are not even showers, denounced the institutional abandonment, warning that they would stop protecting minors, in a situation of enormous vulnerability to sexual violence, exploitation or trafficking. But in the afternoon, the Government presented them with an “emergency roadmap” for which, they said, “it is worth waiting a little longer.” At night, transfers from the sports center to new enabled spaces were expedited and, predictably, will continue today.

Although the Government's intention is to limit the Ceuta crisis to the autonomous city at this time because Europe is looking closely at the Government's immigration policy, sources from the Ministry of Youth and Children have reported this morning that the department, in the hands of the Sumar quota, is working on a comprehensive plan to welcome unaccompanied migrant boys and girls who are in Ceuta. They assure that it will include, without specifying when, binding and supportive reception by all the autonomous communities. That is, the distribution of minors between regions. A road leading from the massive jump completely paralyzed: since the week before the avalanche at the El Tarajal border, no minor has been relocated to the Peninsula. In fact, sources from the regional government explain that the Minors area, in charge of processing the files that allow transfers, is “completely overwhelmed” focused on new foster care. “Right now it is unfeasible,” the same sources insist.

In this way, the path that becomes “urgent” would involve child protection organizations developing the reception and care of girls in adapted centers on the Peninsula that do not depend on the autonomous communities. It would be the same formula that was used to comply with the Supreme Court order, which forced the Government to welcome a thousand asylum-seeking children who arrived in the Canary Islands during the migration crisis.