Police found an eight-year-old Ivorian boy hidden in a suitcase that was smuggled across the border into Spanish territory in north Africa, an official said on Friday.
A 19-year-old
woman took the case through a pedestrian crossing from Morocco into the small
Spanish-governed territory of Ceuta on Thursday, a spokesman for the Civil
Guard police force said.
“When they put the
suitcase through the scanner, the operator noticed something strange, which
seemed to be a person inside the case,” he told AFP.
“When it was
opened they found a minor, in a terrible state.”
The boy said he
was eight years old and from Ivory Coast, according to the spokesman.
The Civil Guard
arrested the woman, who was due to go before a judge.
They also arrested
the boy’s father when he tried to cross the border a few hours later. The
father is Ivorian and lives in Spain’s Canary Islands.
Thousands of
migrants each year risk their lives trying to enter Ceuta and another
Spanish territory bordering Morocco, Melilla, in search of a better life in
Europe.
Many Africans try
to scramble over the seven-metre (23-foot) fences that separate the Spanish
cities from Morocco.
Others smuggle
themselves over the border hidden in vehicles and cargoes or try to swim or
sail from shores on the Moroccan side.
Earlier this week
a 23-year-old Moroccan was found in a shipping container in the port of
Melilla.
He was dehydrated after four days cooped up without food or water, since the container was left unattended over the May holiday weekend.
