Around 70,000 of the people who crossed into Ceuta in late July have returned to Morocco. Yet 1,300 unaccompanied children have not, and remain in a city where the protection system is set up for just 29. Dr Myriam Cherti , Senior Researcher at the Global Exchange on Migration in the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), argues that Spain's response should be judged months from now, based on whether each child is safely with family or in care, back in education and protected from a further dangerous crossing.
Days after crossing from Fnideq into Ceuta after a Facebook rumour that the border was open, a 16-year-old boy was back on the Moroccan side, crying and asking strangers for taxi money. He had joined the rush because Europe seemed to offer a chance to help his family. 'I just wanted to provide for my mum,' he told the Associated Press .
He had returned. Many other children had not. While 70,000 of the roughly 72,000 people who crossed had gone back to Morocco, Ceuta was still caring for around 1,300 unaccompanied children and adolescents. For governments and television crews, a border crisis ends when the streets empty. For the children left behind, it is far from over.
"The response cannot be judged by how quickly the streets clear or how many cases are closed. The real test will come months from now: whether each child is in stable care, safely reunited where possible, back in education and protected from further harm."
Guardians cannot be deployed in hours
Border management rewards speed, but child protection operates differently. Ceuta's officially calculated ordinary capacity is just 29 unaccompanied foreign children - an administrative benchmark rather than a literal bed-count, but still a measure of the extraordinary strain. And while police officers and Guardia Civil can be deployed within hours, those needed to support vulnerable children - guardians, interpreters, social workers and psychologists - cannot.
A previous European review of guardianship systems for unaccompanied children in the EU documented delays, training gaps and shortages. Ceuta highlights the reality of those weaknesses and shows what they look like under extreme pressure.
Why Spain cannot rush decision-making
Spain is familiar with what happens when political urgency replaces protection. After the mass crossing of May 2021, authorities began returning Moroccan children in groups. Fifty-five were handed over before a court stopped the operation. In 2024, Spain's Supreme Court confirmed that the returns were illegal. The children had not received individual decisions, their circumstances had not been properly investigated, mature children had not been heard and prosecutors had not been involved. The court called it a prohibited collective expulsion.
That ruling does not mean every child must remain in Spain indefinitely. Returning a child to a safe and concerned family may be the best outcome. But return must follow an individual assessment. Overcrowded shelters, political anger and diplomatic pressure do not make a hurried decision lawful or safe.
One relative does not make a safe home
Nor is there a single Moroccan perspective. The Moroccan government has announced its readiness to accept duly identified unaccompanied minors, while parents in the border town of Fnideq have searched desperately for children who crossed without warning. For many families, reunification does not pose a threat and is the outcome they want most. Yet the existence of a relative is not proof that a home is secure. Morocco's National Human Rights Council emphasises children's safety, voluntary participation and right to be heard. Authorities must establish who is genuinely responsible for each child and whether return would expose them to abuse, exploitation, homelessness or another dangerous attempt to cross.
The experience of Association Bayti , a Moroccan child-protection organisation that has long worked at this Spanish-Moroccan faultline, shows why repatriation cannot just end with a handover at the border. Ceuta once agreed with Bayti to establish a centre in Tétouan for children returning from Spain, though the plan was never implemented. Bayti's model , based on psychosocial care, family assessment and mediation, schooling, administrative support and an individual life project, is the kind of sustained work a credible return system requires. Without it, a child may disappear from Spain's caseload only to end up on the street or attempting the crossing again.
The evidence also warns against treating these children as one group. Six months after the 2021 crossing, Save the Children interviewed 617 young people who remained in Ceuta's protection system. Almost all said they did not want to return; a third reported physical violence or abuse in their country of origin; and more than 23% were considered potentially eligible for international protection. While the sample did not include children who had already gone home, it makes one fact impossible to ignore: one child may have a safe family waiting for them; another may be escaping violence; and a third may have been trafficked or exploited. Treating every child identically may be administratively convenient, but it is the opposite of protection.
Moving a child is not the same as protecting one
Spain now has more tools than it did in 2021. A national relocation mechanism adopted in 2025 allows children to be transferred from overwhelmed territories such as Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands to other regions. Before this latest emergency, more than 1,750 children had been relocated , including about 650 from Ceuta. That system must now operate at the scale required, and every Spanish region must accept that geography cannot decide which authorities bear responsibility for protecting children.
But relocation does not solve the first hours and days. Authorities must still find and register each child, identify medical and protection risks, provide safe accommodation and begin tracing family members. European practical guidance places the guardian beside the child throughout screening, asylum and related procedures, not at the end of them. These safeguards are not bureaucratic obstacles. They are what separates protection from removal.
There will be fierce public and policy debates about fences, surveillance, misinformation and the relationship between Madrid and Rabat. That discourse needs to happen, particularly when it comes to preventing dangerous crossings and improving rescue efforts. But the response cannot be judged by how quickly the streets clear or how many cases are closed. The real test will come months from now: whether each child is in stable care, safely reunited where possible, back in education and protected from further harm.
Ceuta is often described as the place where Europe meets Africa. For a child who arrives alone, it is more accurately the gap between two protection systems. Closing that gap is not charity. It is a shared legal responsibility. A border can quickly be restored, but a child's life cannot.
