Kin look for kids after Spain-border surge

Children who crossed into Spain wait Thursday inside a temporary shelter for unaccompanied minors in the enclave of Ceuta, next to the border of Morocco and Spain.
(AP/Bernat Armangue)
Children who crossed into Spain wait Thursday inside a temporary shelter for unaccompanied minors in the enclave of Ceuta, next to the border of Morocco and Spain. (AP/Bernat Armangue)

CEUTA, Spain -- Officials in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, have been flooded with calls from Moroccan parents after hundreds of children and teenagers were swept up in a diplomatic storm between Spain and Morocco over migration.

Mabel Deu, a spokesperson for the autonomous city, said Friday that a hotline set up Thursday had received 4,400 calls from desperate relatives seeking information.

So far, authorities have confirmed 438 unaccompanied children 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, Deu said.

"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," she said.

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Morocco already has taken back more than 6,600 of the migrants who made it to Ceuta, Spanish authorities said. Entering the city put them in European Union territory, and hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers attempt to reach Europe from Africa each year.

Many of the worried relatives calling the hotline are just a few miles across the border, in the Moroccan city of Fnideq.

Fatima Zohra told The Associated Press 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 children while they process them.

"Please help me find my daughter," she said. "We always provided for her. We have money. Her father works in a private company."

Spain is legally obliged to care for young migrants until their relatives can be contacted or until they turn 18. Authorities are deciding where on the Spanish mainland to distribute 260 of the children already in Ceuta before the latest surge.

But reunions are proving difficult to bring about, Deu said. Some children told social agencies that they really want to stay, even against their parents' wishes. Others can't get home soon enough.

"I want to leave this place. I don't want Ceuta. I want Morocco," AP reporters heard a girl crying at one center.

Save The Children, an international nonprofit, said speeding up the return of the children should be done case by case, upholding the child's safety and interests above everything else.

The humanitarian crisis started as Morocco and Spain were at odds over Spain agreeing to provide covid-19 care to a prominent Sahrawi leader fighting for the independence of Western Sahara, a territory once under Spanish control that Morocco annexed in the 1970s.

While blaming Spain for creating a diplomatic dispute by hospitalizing the leader of the Polisario Front, Moroccan authorities have denied that they encouraged this week's mass migrant crossings to Ceuta.

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Witnesses and reporters have described seeing the border guard relax controls. But at least two Moroccan officials have attributed the surge to favorable weather or troops being tired after Ramadan celebrations.

"This was not improvised, it was planned. Morocco benefits by sending us and clearing people out," an 18-year-old who crossed into Ceuta this week told the AP. "We are Morocco's experiment. We are like lab rats."

The young man asked that his name not to be disclosed for fear of deportation and other reprisals.

There was no immediate response from Moroccan authorities to repeated requests for comment.

Adult migrants remaining in Ceuta were scattered between makeshift shelters and a migrant holding facility. Many, especially Moroccans, were roaming the streets and hiding from police patrols.

No more migrants arrived in the city without authorization for the third day in a row after Moroccan authorities stepped up vigilance. However, security forces on both sides of the fence separating Morocco from Melilla -- another Spanish territory in North Africa -- repelled groups of young people trying to reach Spanish soil. The government said at least 30 of them made it in.

Sovereignty claims over Ceuta and Melilla by Morocco have been an intermittent flash point between the two Mediterranean neighbors.

But relations dipped to a low this month over Spain's decision to host Brahim Ghali, who leads the Sahrawi's fight against Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara. Ghali, who arrived under a different name with an Algerian passport, is recovering in a hospital from covid-19.

Morocco's ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, warnedFriday that the crisis could worsen depending on how Spain deals with Ghali.

"To choose the same procedure for his departure is to choose the stagnation and the worsening of the crisis," Benyaich told Spain's public broadcaster TVE.

The self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which Ghali also leads, blamed Morocco on Friday for using "expansionist policies, aggression, and blackmail" in trying to push European countries toward accepting its claim to Western Sahara, following the recognition the United States gave last year.

"The conviction by Moroccan diplomats that Trump's declaration could create a global dynamic to legitimize the annexation and illegal occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco resulted in a political fiasco," the group said.

Morocco has offered to grant wide-ranging autonomy to the territory, where a U.N. peacekeeping force has monitored a cease-fire since 1991. The Polisario Front says residents have the right to a referendum on self-determination.

Information for this article was contributed by Aritz Parra of The Associated Press.

Young migrants who crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, take shelter Friday in an abandoned building. Authorities have been flooded with calls from Moroccan parents after the arrival of hundreds of children and teenagers. More photos at arkansasonline.com/522migrants/.
(AP/Bernat Armangue)
Young migrants who crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, take shelter Friday in an abandoned building. Authorities have been flooded with calls from Moroccan parents after the arrival of hundreds of children and teenagers. More photos at arkansasonline.com/522migrants/. (AP/Bernat Armangue)
Local resident Sabah Hamed, centre, attends to migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Thursday, May 20, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Local resident Sabah Hamed, centre, attends to migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Thursday, May 20, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A migrant sleeps inside a garage in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, May 21, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A migrant sleeps inside a garage in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, May 21, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Migrants take shelter inside an abandoned building in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, May 21, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Migrants take shelter inside an abandoned building in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, May 21, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A migrant is escorted by Spanish police in Ceuta, near the border of Morocco and Spain, Friday, May 21, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A migrant is escorted by Spanish police in Ceuta, near the border of Morocco and Spain, Friday, May 21, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
The body of a young man covered with an emergency blanket after being recovered by Spanish police from waters near the border between Morocco and Spain's north African enclave of Ceuta, Thursday, May 20, 2021. Thousands of migrants jumped or swam around a border fence to reach European soil this week after Morocco loosened its border patrols. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
The body of a young man covered with an emergency blanket after being recovered by Spanish police from waters near the border between Morocco and Spain's north African enclave of Ceuta, Thursday, May 20, 2021. Thousands of migrants jumped or swam around a border fence to reach European soil this week after Morocco loosened its border patrols. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A migrant sleeps in a public park in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, May 21, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A migrant sleeps in a public park in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, May 21, 2021. Spain says it has returned to Morocco over 6,600 of the more than 8,000 migrants who swam or jumped over border fences into one of Spain's enclaves in North Africa this week. Social services in Ceuta were dealing with thousands of calls from Moroccan parents looking for their children and trying to speed up family reunions, said authorities in Spain's north African enclave at the heart of a sudden humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic storm with Morocco. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

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