An eight-year-old boy has been
smuggled into Spain from Morocco
inside a suitcase, Spanish police say.
The boy, Abou, was found inside the case
being carried by a 19-year-old woman
into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave next to
Morocco, on Thursday.
When police opened the case, they
found the boy in a "terrible state".
The boy, from Ivory Coast, is now in the
care of authorities in Ceuta.
The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported
(in Spanish) that the 19-year-old is not
related to the boy, and was paid by his
father to carry the suitcase.
The boy's father lives in the Canary
Islands and had hoped to be reunited
with his son, El Pais said.
The Spanish news agency Efe said the
boy's father, also named Abou, had
travelled back to Ivory Coast to pick him
up, having moved to Gran Canaria in
2013.
The father then reportedly paid the
Moroccan courier to carry the suitcase. A
police spokesman told Efe: "She seemed
to hesitate, and it looked as though she
didn't want to come through the border.
"At first we thought that there could be
drug packages, but gradually discovered
that it was a human body."
The boy's father travelled across the
border an hour-and-a-half after his son.
At that point, Efe said, he was detained
by border guards.
Fenced off
Ceuta and another Spanish enclave,
Melilla, sit on Morocco's Mediterranean
coast, and are each surrounded on three
sides by Morocco.
Madrid says they are integral parts of
Spain and manages their borders, but
Morocco claims sovereignty over the
territories.
Despite being surrounded by six-metre-high fences, the enclaves have proved to be popular areas for migrants to try to cross into Europe from Africa.
Human Rights Watch says at least 4,300 people entered Ceuta and Melilla illegally in 2013, compared to 2,804 the year before.
In February last year, hundreds of
migrants stormed the fence in Melilla
in one day, with around 100 managing to make it into the enclave.

Source BBC News

Saw this on the news and I was like....where were we when the europeans were building their countries?


Surprisingly, we are told that Egypt enslaved Israelites.

Painfully is mostly west africans. So one can only make it the west? What if he died?