At eight o’clock on Wednesday night, the football field in the Ceuta neighborhood of El Príncipe lights up to illuminate those still finishing the match. Also, a small circle of girls talks next to the stands, crowded, very serious. Suddenly, a young woman climbs over the entrance gate running towards them, arriving crying, stumbling. The others come out to meet her and shout: “How did you escape?”, they hug, joining her in tears. She has fled from one of the juvenile centers that the autonomous city has set up in Ceuta to house unaccompanied minors who crossed at the end of July. She is 17 years old and is the fourth girl to escape from this field, the seventh in total. Before midnight, Nadia, the eighth, will join. Their names have been changed to protect their identity.
All these migrants, of Moroccan origin, were housed in juvenile centers at the beginning of September after more than a month living in informal camps set up with the solidarity of neighbors, like this one in El Príncipe or the one in Sidi Embarek, still in operation. They were relocated to two facilities managed by two different entities (Samu and Engloba), located next to each other, inside the industrial estate of Las Naves de El Tarajal. According to a complaint filed with the police, a few days later they began to suffer mistreatment by the staff in charge, insults, humiliation, and lack of medical care. Also physical punishments and constant threats of expulsion to Morocco. Contacted by this newspaper, neither of the two companies wanted to make statements.
“They constantly call us whores, they hit us, they punish us if we ask to use the phone or a pillow,” says Fatima, agitated. She escaped on Tuesday along with two other companions, and she stumbles trying to summarize what happened. She has a bruise on her thigh, which she says is the result of a beating by the center’s staff. The others also have bruises and various wounds, which they have photographed and included in the police report. “We escaped, but there are many more who remain inside and have not succeeded. We do it also for them. When we have a health problem, they don’t take us to the doctor, and they insult us to make us endure it. There is a girl still inside who was not even assisted when she vomited blood,” she says. According to her account, that particular minor is subjected to humiliation and insults because of her sexual orientation.
One of the most serious episodes they report happened on September 10, during the night. Two men in security uniforms entered the area where the girls were sleeping, woke them up, and uttered sexual insults and explicit threats of rape. “I wasn’t working that day, I wasn’t there that night, but the girls told me about it. I tried to find out who they were and reported it,” says one of the center’s assistants. She assures that such abuse episodes have not occurred in her presence, although she is aware of what they report. “I try to calm them down when they want to escape, I explain that they won’t be better off on the street,” she explains. The assistant says fights among the girls are frequent, and that in her presence there are punishments, but not physical ones.
It was precisely during one of those fights this Tuesday when a group of four minors took advantage of the security staff moving upstairs to intervene, and escaped. They went after them but dispersed in the industrial estate. During her escape, Karima, 16 years old, crossed paths with a volunteer from Doctors of the World, who maintains a mobile unit in the area to assist the dozens of migrants living in informal settlements nearby. “She appeared with an anxiety attack, bruises, and a contusion on her back,” explains the healthcare worker. They conducted a psychological report and another on the injuries, both of which were included in the complaints. According to sources from the organization, they were aware of such episodes in the juvenile centers but had not confirmed them until this week because they are not allowed access. They point to a problem of lack of training of the staff in these centers and an absence of comprehensive healthcare for the minors, many of whom are in a situation of great vulnerability.
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Ongoing investigation
On Thursday, the Ceuta Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office received a report with the police complaint, medical and psychological reports. The young women were interviewed, and that same morning the city’s juvenile department, which holds their guardianship, intervened. The two security men involved in the September 10 episode were identified and removed from their positions, with the decision to replace them with women, now and going forward. One of the educators accused by the minors of repeatedly hitting them was also identified.
At the same time, a new location was sought for the complainants, and they spent the night in another facility set up for unaccompanied minors. “We cannot host them again, we cannot be like at the beginning,” says Ahmed Enfed-Dal, president of the El Príncipe neighbors’ association. The group that escaped on Wednesday arrived at his field, taking advantage of a scheduled outing from the center for the girls to go outside. “They came back here telling what had happened, and it breaks my heart, but we cannot set up the camp here again because that is not a solution. We don’t have guardianship; they have to take care of it,” he explains.
Despite this, Hafida Mustafa, another neighbor who set up the improvised camp in August, looks for solutions. At least for that night. She will host one of the girls in her home and tries to relocate the others until the next morning when they have to go to testify. “Look how she comes, she has an infection on her foot,” she says, pointing to a wound on Nadia’s instep. “Not even when they were here sleeping on the floor were they in these conditions,” she criticizes. Those who fled the center on Thursday, like Fatima and Nadia, arrive without their mobile phones or any belongings. They ran away with what they were wearing and returned to the previous place that sheltered them for almost a month at the start of the crisis. “But this cannot happen again, this has to stop,” insists Hafida, in vain. A day later, three more minors appeared in the camp, also from the same center.
Zineb also left but did not return to El Príncipe: she crossed the border again. “I couldn’t take any more humiliations, among us there are those who wear hijab and those who don’t, but they insult and hit you anyway. I couldn’t take it anymore, I went back to Morocco, although I’m not happy here with this situation I’m in now, on the street, but I have no choice,” she writes from there. On Saturday, September 12, she went to the border post and returned voluntarily. “I didn’t have to go back to Morocco, I had to move forward and build my future there because I have a little brother there whom I have to support and take care of,” she explains. According to her center companions, she is one of the four who have returned voluntarily, an option they admit they increasingly consider. Meanwhile, the investigation continues.
