Madrid - An African boy found inside
a suitcase at a Spanish border
crossing will be reunited with his
mother since DNA tests proved the
two are related, the family's lawyer
said Friday.
Eight-year-old Adou Ouattara has
been staying at a centre for
underage migrants in Ceuta, one of
two Spanish enclaves in North Africa,
since police found him on May 7
curled up and covered inside a
suitcase without air vents at a
border checkpoint in the territory.
The suitcase was being taken
through a pedestrian border
crossing by a 19-year-old woman,
whose identity has not been
released, when a border security
scanner detected the boy inside.
Several hours after the youngster
was detected his father, Ali Ouattara
who is from the Ivory Coast, was
arrested at the same border crossing
on charges of human rights abuse,
for trying to have the boy smuggled
into the country.
"We are going to get the boy on
Monday," the family's lawyer, Juan
Isidro Fernandez Diaz, told AFP.
Officials last month granted Adou
authorisation to live in Spain for one
year and were waiting for results of
DNA tests before turning him over to
his mother Lucie Ouattara, who lives
legally in Spain's Canary Islands off
the Moroccan coast.
She moved to Spain from the Ivory
Coast last year to join the boy's
father, who was already living legally
in the Canary Islands.
She brought along their 11-year-old
daughter but left Adou behind with
his grandmother and brother in the
town of Assuefry in the northeast of
the Ivory Coast.
After the grandmother died in 2014,
Ali requested a residency permit in
Spain for Adou, the lawyer said.
But the request for family
reunification was declined because
his monthly income fell 58 euros ($
65) short of the 1,333 euros required
by law.
Each year, thousands of migrants
risk their lives trying to enter Ceuta
and Melilla, another Spanish
territory bordering Morocco, 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.
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