A Moroccan biology professor at a university in his home country, alleged to have abandoned his two young sons in Bilbao, has been arrested by Spanish police.
The unnamed man allegedly deliberately left his two young sons in the Basque country so they could be registered as unaccompanied foreign minors and placed under public guardianship.
According to the Spanish newspaper El Debate, the man accompanied his sons to Bilbao in the Basque region last May.
He remained with them until they presented themselves at a national police station, claiming to be in a state of abandonment.
At that point, he returned to Morocco, fully aware of the procedures his children would follow.
The two Moroccan brothers were initially taken into a reception centre in Biscay before being transferred to facilities run by the Gipuzkoa provincial council in the towns of Arrasate and Segura.
They were formally registered as menores extranjeros no acompañados (MENAs) – unaccompanied foreign minors – with the public prosecutor’s office informed, as is standard under Spanish child protection rules.
During interviews with officers from the National Police’s provincial brigade for immigration and borders in Gipuzkoa, the boys stated that they had acted with their father’s full knowledge and consent.
They confirmed that in Morocco they were financially dependent on their father, a university biology lecturer and “lacked for nothing”.
They believed, tthough, “they would have more opportunities in Spain”.
Police later discovered that the father had re-entered Spain via Algeciras.
He was summoned to a police station in San Sebastián on March 12 and arrested on two counts of child abandonment.
After expressing a desire to regain custody, a voluntary family reunification was arranged in co-operation with the Gipuzkoa authorities responsible for the children’s care.
The boys left the residential centres with their father.
The case forms part of a broader pattern identified by Spanish police.
Authorities have noted a rise in instances of foreign minors arriving with parents who then abandon them, instructing the children to claim abandonment so that public institutions assume legal guardianship.
Spanish regional governments, particularly in areas such as the Basque Country, already shoulder a significant burden caring for thousands of unaccompanied foreign minors.
