CHILDREN are being abandoned by their parents in two holiday hotspots in a suspected long game migrant ploy, according to Spanish officials.
Authorities in Menorca are investigating a “new phenomenon” of parents flying to their holiday destination and leaving their kids behind so they can be taken into care as lone child migrants.
AlamyChildren are being abandoned by their parents in Menorca in a suspected long game migrant ploy, according to Spanish officials[/caption]
AlamyAuthorities are investigating a trend of parents flying to the holiday destination and leaving their kids in the new country – pictured Menorca airport[/caption]
A welfare council chief on the Spanish island has revealed two youngsters, aged 11 and 16, have been left at bus stations as their parents jetted off home in recent weeks.
The trend is also being seen in Ibiza where two children were recently left on the island and given instructions to head to a police station by their loved ones.
Privately, officials have said they are not ruling out the possibility the youngsters could try to bring other family members to live with them in Europe once they turn 18.
A local newspaper reported that the children dumped in Menorca were from separate families.
The 11-year-old was Moroccan while the 16-year-old was from Senegal, the paper claimed.
Officials are yet to confirm the children’s nationalities.
Carolina Escandell, Ibiza Council’s Welfare Minister, raged: “This is child abandonment and if they were Spanish the parents would be reported.”
Menorca’s Welfare Minister Carmen Reynes added: “We have expressed our concern because as well as having to cope with migrants arriving by sea, this new phenomenon now has to be taken into account.
“It could have a knock-on effect.”
All four children are now being looked after on the two islands by the local institutions.
It follows another case of a ten-year-old boy being abandoned by his West African-born parents at Barcelona’s El Prat airport in July.
The parents were reportedly flying out of Barcelona but were worried they wouldn’t get into Morocco because their son didn’t have a visa.
They are understood to have been stopped by police before they got on their flight.
Officials are certain that that case is not thought to be linked to the feared new migration trend.
Spain has been gripped by an immigration crisis in recent months.
Officials on the Canary Islands are demanding a state of emergency be declared to combat the growing migrant issues.
Around 47,000 people arrived on the Spanish islands on small boats last year with government officials saying the number of unaccompanied minors has reached almost three times the official capacity.
This year alone, from January 1, to May 15, 10,882 people have reached the Canaries via maritime routes.
Many of these include young children with the government now admitting they are struggling to keep them all safe due to the volume of those arriving.
Local fury
Angered locals in Majorca, Ibiza, Tenerife and across Spain are all said to be at their “wits end” over migration, according to island governments.
Migrants, mainly from Africa, have been washing up on the Balearics and the Canary Islands virtually every day – with 4,700 arriving on Majorca, Ibiza and Formentera this summer.
The UK has been battling a similar problem, with more than 50,000 migrants arriving this year.
But the Balearic Islands are the “main gateway” for migrants moving up into the continent, according to the islands’ president, suggesting some of them could go on to reach Britain.
Mallorca’s south coast is known as a “graveyard” for the abandoned boats – amid an ongoing dispute over who should dispose of them.
How Europe is cracking down on migrants
AS 50,000 migrants have poured into Britain in small boats, European nations are cracking down and securing their own borders.
With public anger growing over soaring entries to their nations, more leaders are taking a harsher stance on migration – and dishing out swift deportations.
t comes as Sir Keir Starmer passed the damning milestone of 50,000 people crossing the Channel in small boats under his watch.
This is despite pledges from Labour to cut net migration to the UK when they entered office last year.
Home Office stats show arrivals this year are 47 per cent higher than the same point in 2024 and 67 per cent higher than in 2023.
Meanwhile, governments in Europe are cracking down and booting migrants out at swift speeds.
READ MORE HERE
President of the Balearic government, Marga Prohens, said the wave of immigration into the Balearic Islands is “alarming”.
It comes as police in Gran Canaria said they believed “at least” 50 migrants were tortured and thrown overboard after being accused of witchcraft on a hellish boat crossing to Europe in September.
Allegations of mass high seas executions on board the overcrowded vessel first emerged after 248 survivors were rescued off the coast of Africa and taken to the island they had been aiming for.
In June, Spanish police confirmed they had launched an investigation after the bodies of five migrants were found bobbing in the sea off the Balearic Islands with their hands and feet bound.
Initial speculation centred on the possibility they could have been murdered and thrown overboard.
The families of the men who died, all Somalians, later revealed they were shackled in a death ritual after they perished from starvation as they tried to reach Europe.
GettyThe trend is also being seen in Ibiza where two children were recently left on the island and given instructions to head to a police station by their loved ones[/caption]
ReutersThe Spanish migrant crisis is worsening, say locals and concerned officials[/caption]