Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
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 has said.
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 short of the €1,333 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 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.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Russia the mushroom state, where the vast majority of the population is kept in the dark and fed on bs. If Putin really thinks that attacking Ukraine is a just cause, he’d be telling his people the truth, instead of desperately trying to keep the lid on what’s taking place.
The basic issue here is Putin and his mates are establishing structures to protect their continued robbery of Russia. Unfortunately Western politicians, bankers and others enabled Russian oligarch’s accumulate their wealth for over 20 years and therefore they share responsibility for the many atrocities recently perpetrated by Russia. Turning a blind eye is costing the world dearly.
@Neil Neart: Wow. I don’t blame anyone but Russia for this.
@Neil Neart: I think you are almost completely right except you forgot to blame Russia for invading its neighbour which is entirely Russias responsibility.
@Neil Neart: I guess you can take your pick-
A. West did nothing to retain Putin over the years- so its our fault.
B. West did too much meddling- so its our fault.
Ejits.
@Neil Neart: I guess you can take your pick-
A. West did nothing to retain Putin over the years so its our fault.
B. West did too much meddling- so its our fault.
Ejits.
Russians negotiating in nothing but bad faith.
Oligarch means millionaire
@David Haye: Including our own who is the owner of Aughish Alumina.
@David Haye: eegit.
@David Haye: Fool
Sanctions against Oleg Deripaska? Michael Martin has his head in the sand about this guy.
There can be no long win here for Russia and though the emperor himself surely now is aware he has no clothes, he is keen to bludgeon his way to consensus on his most magnificent garment amidst the bodies of families and children. Fleeting truth will not last. The Greeks knew the power of the word Logos a deep truth it cannot be hidden.
What about our own Oligarc Oleg?
have your say