Sira Rego advances her trip to Ceuta due to the collapse of the reception of minors after the migratory crisis

The Minister of Youth and Childhood, Sira Rego, has brought forward her arrival in Ceuta to this Thursday to address on the ground the reception of unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents who remain in the city. The trip comes a week after the massive entry on July 30 and 31 overwhelmed available resources.

Rego will visit several care facilities this afternoon and will continue her agenda on Friday morning. The minister will meet at the Government Delegation headquarters with its highest representative in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Pérez, and will visit other centers set up in recent days. She will also hold a meeting with the ELIN Association, dedicated since 1999 to the reception, accompaniment, and defense of the rights of migrant people.

The minister's arrival comes as administrations try to identify and find accommodation for all minors who entered from Morocco. The president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, placed the number of children and adolescents hosted by the city at around 1,100 this Wednesday, although hundreds remain outside the protection network and some are still sleeping on the street, according to social entities and neighborhood associations.

Youth and Childhood assures that it has maintained constant coordination with the Government of Ceuta, the Government Delegation and the rest of the administrations involved since July 27. The immediate priority is to complete the individual affiliation of minors, ascertain their family circumstances, and transfer them to safe spaces while the appropriate response for each case is decided.

One school open and another pending

The Ministry asked the Autonomous City to open two schools to urgently expand reception capacity, with special attention to girls. The Reina Sofía school already receives more than a hundred minors, who have spent their first night there and are being attended to, according to information confirmed by sources from Youth and Childhood.

The opening of the second center will help alleviate a pressure that is still much higher than Ceuta's ordinary capacity. Children's organizations have demanded safe accommodation, food, healthcare, and legal assistance for all minors. They also ask that each situation be examined individually and that the presumption of minority be maintained when there are doubts.

Among the measures studied is the transfer to the Peninsula through the binding mechanism included since 2025 in the Immigration Law. The reform approved by the Government allows minors to be distributed among the autonomous communities when the services of a territory far exceed its capacity. The transfers carried out so far correspond to young people who were already in Ceuta before the crisis, while the identification of those who arrived last week continues.

The Ministry also contemplates reunification with their families in their countries of origin when it is verified that safe conditions exist and the measure responds to the best interest of the minor. Another possibility is to resort to agreements with organizations specialized in child protection. Each decision must be adopted after studying the personal and family situation of the child or adolescent.

The Government has also approved an extraordinary allocation of 25 million euros to reinforce the care of migrant minors in Ceuta. The opening of the second school, the completion of the registration, and the beginning of the transfers of those who arrived during the crisis will be the immediate issues that Rego will address during his visit.