Over half the 2,345 unaccompanied minors who landed on Spanish shores last year escaped reception centers and it is unclear where they went. The situation of unaccompanied migrant minors is becoming ever more serious in Spain and is especially acute in Andalusia, the Seville prosecutor's office for the protection of minors and state prosecutor's office said on Monday at the opening of the judicial year.
Dealing with the issue is a priority also for the Socialist government under Pedro Sanchez, which in August passed a decree to improve reception centers in the Ceuta and Melilla Spanish enclaves in Morocco.
Sharp rise in migrant minors arriving via sea In 2017
Some 1,293 foreign minors ''fled'' reception centers in the country and it is not known what happened to them after that, according to the state prosecutor's office.
A total of 2,345 unaccompanied migrant minors landed on Spanish coasts that year, a 398% increase on 2016, when there were 588 arrivals, and a 566% increase on 2015, when 414 did. The vast majority of the children and adolescents were males (97%) and from Morocco (56.3%) or from African sub-Saharan countries such as Guinea (8.4%), Ivory Coast (7.5%), and Gambia (2.8%). As of December 31, the prosecutor's office had recorded 6,1414 minors ''under the protection of or in reception (facilities) of protection services'', a 60% increase on 2016. The number of checks to determine the age of the minors also increased by 88% on the previous year to 5,600.
The increase in the number of unaccompanied migrant minors was massive in the southern part of Andalusia, where 4,798 of the 10,162 minors who landed in Spain over the past two years arrived, a 572% increase. The figures released by the Seville prosecutor's office for families and the protection of minors show how serious the matter is, which ''has got out of hand,'' head prosecutor Daniel Valpuesta was quoted by El Pais as saying. This is ''because there are not enough resources to fully apply the consequences of the statement of an abandoned minor: assistance, education and preparation for adult life,'' Valpuesta said.
Centers now 'storage facilities for children'
The prosecutor added that none of the 400 repatriation orders issued by the juvenile court offices had been carried out by a delegation of the government, the local prefect's office, despite the fact that 70% of the cases concerning Moroccan minors have families that ''have been localized''. Thus, he said that the reception centers have become de facto ''storage facilities for children'', who are not offered necessary resources for education. The measure approved on Friday by in the Cabinet under Pedro Sanchez, with an allocation of 40 million euros for regions that will volunteer to accept migrant minors, is considered not enough by Valpuesta.
The prosecutor insisted on the need for ''formulas'' to dissuade children and minors from starting out on these journeys of hope towards Spain, including the need to take them back to their family members. He lamented, nonetheless, that there is ''a lack of political will'' to do so.