Spain returns 6,600 to Morocco, families look for loved ones

CEUTA (AP):

Officials in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, faced complications Friday 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 438 unaccompanied minors were among more than 8,000 people who arrived in Ceuta from Morocco between Monday and Wednesday by scaling a border fence or swimming around it. Social service workers were checking the ages of many more young people who are in shelters or roaming the streets, Mabel Deu, a spokesperson for the autonomous city, said.

INFORMATION HOTLINE

A hotline set up Thursday had received 4,400 calls by a day later from desperate relatives seeking information, she said. Many of the enquiries were about minors.

“Our goal is that they reunite with their parents as soon as possible because we understand the anguish and worry of many families who don’t know where their children are,” Deu said.

Morocco has already taken back over 6,600 of the migrants who made it to Ceuta, Spanish authorities said. 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 miles across the border, in the Moroccan city of Fnideq. But stepped-up vigilance along an eight-kilometre-long (5-mile-long) border and the overwhelmed resources on the Spanish side making the reunions difficult.

Fatima Zohra told AP that other girls pushed her 14-year-old daughter to cross the border without her mother’s knowledge. Zohra said she spotted her daughter in photos from inside the warehouse where Spanish officials are keeping the minors while they process them.