Spain to Transfer 500 Vulnerable Youths From Ceuta
The plan could place girls aged 9 to 17 in adapted facilities, foster homes and government care while Ceuta keeps legal guardianship during transfers.
neljapäev, 20. august 2026 10:33
Spain said Wednesday it plans to transfer about 500 particularly vulnerable unaccompanied youths from Ceuta to mainland Spain, Deutsche Welle reported.
Spain’s Ministry of Youth and Children said the plan includes a mechanism for “child protection organizations to take in and care for the most vulnerable individuals — including girls — in adapted facilities on the mainland, without the need to transfer custody to [regional authorities].”
Migration Minister Elma Saiz told public broadcaster RNE that Madrid was working with Ceuta and Spain’s regional governments to organize the children’s transfer and placement. Saiz said the children were mainly girls and would be placed in foster homes as well as under government care, adding that the “overriding welfare of the children” must be protected.
Spain’s EFE news agency quoted government officials as saying a royal decree would establish “the binding and solidarity-based reception of minors by all regions.” UNICEF Spain’s Lara Contreras said Ceuta would retain legal guardianship of the girls until they were transferred to child protection organizations on the mainland “willing to take them in.”
Contreras said 97 of the 500 selected girls, aged 9 to 17, had already been moved to improved facilities and would be transferred as soon as possible. She said it was “urgent” for authorities to properly identify unaccompanied children, saying “hundreds of them are wandering the streets alone, in unsanitary conditions.”
The children are among roughly 80,000 people who crossed into Ceuta from Morocco on July 30 in hopes of starting a better life in Europe. Most have since returned to Morocco, but Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska recently said around 5,000 remain in Ceuta; national police reportedly identified 2,168 unaccompanied minors living on the streets since the crossing and handed them to local authorities on July 30.
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