A court confirmed on Thursday June 30 that the return to their country of Moroccan minors who arrived in the spring of 2021 in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta was illegal and that their rights had been violated during this migratory episode.
Read alsoSpain opens its borders of Ceuta and Melilla to Moroccan workers
They had entered the small autonomous territory of Ceuta on May 17 and 18, 2021, among some 10,000 migrants who had taken advantage of the lax attitude of the Moroccan security forces to cross the border.
Most of the refugees were sent back to Morocco within days, but Ceuta was still home to nearly 820 underage migrants two months later.
The Spanish government of socialist Pedro Sánchez had undertaken to send them back to Morocco in groups of 15, triggering controversy within the ruling left-wing coalition, as well as immediate complaints from several NGOs demanding that the expulsions be stopped.
Unaccompanied minors were, in fact, brought back to Morocco without having had access to a lawyer and without having been able to be heard, whereas returns to the country of origin must be "
accompanied by a series of guarantees
" to comply to the law, affirmed in August Patricia Fernández Vicens, lawyer for one of the NGOs.
A Ceuta court ruled in favor of these NGOs in August 2021 and suspended the repatriation of a group of minors.
The authorities, both the municipality and the government delegation (prefecture) in Ceuta, had appealed.
But Thursday, the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (southern Spain) confirmed in second instance the first decision and dismissed the authorities, judging that "
the administration, by refraining from applying the minimum mandatory procedural guarantees, had given rise to an objective situation of proven risk for the physical or moral integrity of unaccompanied foreign minors
", according to the decision, consulted by the AFP.
Read alsoCeuta: a piece of Spain in the Maghreb
"
The sudden, massive and illegal nature of the entry into Ceuta last spring of thousands of Moroccan citizens in no way authorized Spain to evade the law
", concludes the judgment.
The decision can still be appealed against.
Ceuta is, with the neighboring city of Melilla, one of the two Spanish enclaves located on the northern coast of Morocco, the only land borders of the EU on the African continent.
On June 24, 23 African migrants were killed when around 2,000 people tried to force their way into Melilla.
