Police in Barcelona say dozens of migrant children and young people are sleeping in police stations because there is not enough space in the city's reception centers.
The Mossos d'Esquadra Catalan police force has issued a formal complaint to the state prosecutor's office in Barecelona, saying dozens of unaccompanied children and adolescent migrants are being forced to sleep at police stations in the city because they were turned away from migrant reception centers due to lack of beds.
About 30 minors, most of whom are Moroccan, have been forced to spend the last four nights in police stations in the districts of Sant-Montjuic, Eixample and Ciutat Vella, sleeping on benches or on the floor, without being able to take a shower and being fed only sandwiches that the police officers provided for them. The news came from sources within the Mossos, cited by Spanish media.
Sources said the justification given for the refusal to accommodate the migrants in centers for the protection of minors is that of mass migrant arrivals in Catalonia in July and August, with 125 per week on average.
Services unable to handle influx
The emergency has caused services provided by the regional government's General Directorate for Attention in Childhood and Adolescence (DGAIA) to collapse, despite the creation of 230 new places in the past three weeks. DGAIA has had to ask Mossos to house the minors on a temporary basis following identification, given the fact that there are no other places to house them.
On Thursday, the Catalan government's Department of the Interior said social services managers can no longer use police stations as temporary refuges. It said that starting Friday the unaccompanied minor migrants must be accommodated in all cases in the reception structures, even if that means placing them in situations of overcrowding.
"It's unacceptable that these children are in these conditions, certainly worse than they would find in any structure, no matter how crammed they are," said a police officer cited by Spanish daily La Vanguardia.
Dozens sleeping in police stations since Monday
Since Monday, dozens of foreign minors between the ages of 10 and 14 have slept in police stations not only in Barcelona, but also in the cities of Horta, Badalona, Santa Coloma, Premiá de Mar, Matarò, Tarragona and Girona. According to an EU law implemented in Spain, the Catalan regional government must ensure the protection, support, and education of unaccompanied migrant minors as they await the decision on their fate from a juvenile court judge, above all in cases in which they may be claimed by their own family members.
The situation in Spain became unsustainable following the disembarkation at the start of the year of more than 10,000 unaccompanied minor migrants on Spanish coasts, of whom at least 4,100 arrived in Andalusia.