Ceuta Says it Can't Cope With 1,100 Stranded Migrant Kids
Last update: August 6, 2026
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Parks and beaches full of young children with nowhere to go — that's the reality in Ceuta right now, and local officials say they simply can't cope.
Here's what's happening in Spain's North African enclave:
As reported by cbinews.tv, Ceuta made an urgent plea for government help on Wednesday as it struggles to look after hundreds of unaccompanied minors left behind after last week's mass border crossing.
Most of the 72,000 people who rushed into the territory have now returned to Morocco, but around 2,500 remain — including about 1,100 children and teenagers who arrived before and during the influx. Unlike adults, they can't be summarily deported.
On Wednesday, groups of young children were seen gathering in parks and on beaches while authorities scrambled to identify and house them.
Local officials are calling the situation “unsustainable”. They say youngsters are enduring dire conditions with limited access to food, water, shelter and sanitation, and are calling on Madrid to transfer the children to mainland Spain.
Ceuta's leader Juan Jesus Vivas, of the main opposition Popular Party (PP), warned there was “a high risk for order and public security” as reception centres are completely overwhelmed.
The government's top official in Ceuta, Miguel Angel Perez, said the youngsters were “a priority, a source of great concern”.
The politics are getting messy, too. While regional governments are legally obliged to help in an emergency, redistribution is likely to face resistance from four regions governed by the conservative PP and the anti-immigration, far-right Vox party.
Socialist deputy prime minister Carlos Cuerpo insisted on public television that the PP and its regional governments “must comply with the law just like everyone else”.
Spain's ministry for youth and children has announced $29 million in emergency funding to help the tiny territory of just 84,000 inhabitants care for the minors.
In a sombre update, Spanish legal authorities raised the death toll from last week's incident to 78 after a body was recovered late on Wednesday. Morocco's interior ministry said on Sunday that 11 people had died on the Moroccan side of the border.
Source: cbinews.tv
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