ARabat – The Spanish enclave of Melilla will send a list of undocumented Moroccan minors to Morocco’s Ministry of Interior for repatriation.
Melilla Mayor-President Juan Jose Imbroda announced the decision on Wednesday, October 3.
Spanish Secretary of State for Security Ana Botella announced in a meeting in Essaouira, near Agadir, on September 14 that Moroccan authorities agreed to receive the identified and unaccompanied minors.
According to Vanguardia, Imbroda expressed surprise that Botella informed the press that Morocco and Spain had agreed to the repatriation without informing Ceuta and Melilla.
Satisfied with the Moroccan-Spanish agreement, Imbroda said that he will send a list of names to the Moroccan authorities.
The agreement followed pressure due to undocumented migration from Africa to Europe.
Recently, the Royal Moroccan Navy rescued dozens of migrants off Tangier and Nador in the Mediterranean.
The rescues followed a tragic incident off of M’diq-Fnideq in northern Morocco, when the navy opened fire on a boat of migrants.
The gunfire killed one migrant, Hayat, a 20-year old woman from Tetouan in northern Morocco.
Morocco, a transit country for sub-Saharan migrants, has reaffirmed its categorical refusal to house reception centers for migrants to the EU.
On Thursday, Government Spokesperson Mustapha El Khalfi said that the idea of creating reception centers for migrants is only an attempt to externalize Europe’s migration challenges.
“We need a long-term solution and not an immediate economic solution.”
In a recent interview with German news outlet Die Welt, Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita repeated Morocco’s position.
“Morocco is generally against all kinds of centers. It is part of our migration policy and it’s a position in the name of national sovereignty,” he said.
Bourita said that 3 percent of the world’s population have migrated, 80 percent of which have done so legally. “We are talking about only 20 percent of this 3 percent.”
