The Spanish Government has begun preparing the urgent transfer of around 500 unaccompanied migrant girls from the North African enclave of Ceuta to mainland Spain, prioritising them as the most vulnerable group among the minors who remain after the July 30 mass influx from Morocco.
The Ministry of Youth and Children is working on a plan to relocate the girls, many of whom have been living in overcrowded or makeshift conditions. The department, led by Sira Rego, has said the plan is being drawn up on the ground by the secretary of state for youth and children, Rubén Pérez.
National Police have registered 2,168 unaccompanied minors in Ceuta since July 30, according to Interior Ministry figures released on August 18. Interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has put the number who entered from that date at 72,000, of whom 70,000 returned within days.
Officials say the girls and children under 13 are being given priority because they are considered the most vulnerable profiles.
As a first step, more than 110 of them have been moved into a school converted into a temporary female-only facility.
The relocation comes amid multiple reports of sexual violence.
The Guardia Civil has confirmed 15 sexual assaults in Ceuta since July 30, force sources told El Mundo. The most recent came on the night of August 14, when three men were caught trying to assault a 10-year-old girl.
The scale is disputed. The National Police told fact-checking site Maldita.es it had registered 11 complaints from Moroccan minors by August 18, while the Ceuta prosecutor’s office put the number of formal sexual assault complaints at 13 by August 17.
At least five girls under the age of 14 were treated at Ceuta University Hospital for injuries consistent with rape or sexual assault, health sources told El Pueblo de Ceuta, adding that the figure could be higher because some victims do not lodge a complaint.
Courts in the city have remanded nine migrants who arrived on July 30 and ordered two others expelled, the Andalusian High Court of Justice said. Three of those cases are sexual assaults, and two of the victims were minors.
The ministry has not formally presented the transfer of these 500 girls as a direct response to the assaults.
Instead, it frames the measure as protecting the best interests of the most vulnerable children.
The girls have been grouped in designated safe spaces in Ceuta while the longer-term plan is prepared.
That plan would allow specialised child-protection organisations to care for them on the mainland without immediately transferring legal guardianship to the receiving autonomous communities. Ministry sources have said the package also contemplates a royal decree-law imposing binding reception on all autonomous communities.
In the days after the mass crossing, the Spanish Government repeatedly insisted that no irregular arrivals from Ceuta would reach the Spanish mainland or the rest of Europe, stressing the enclave’s special status outside the full Schengen free-movement rules and the existence of exit controls.
Grande-Marlaska said everyone who had entered irregularly would be subject to return under the law and that nobody entering illegally could expect any backing in the legal system.
The planned transfer of the girls now marks an official exception to that earlier messaging.
The decision has drawn criticism. European Commission home affairs spokesman Markus Lammert said on August 18 that Brussels continued to insist that all those remaining illegally in Ceuta be returned, and that EU law, including the return directive agreed in June, provided for the return of unaccompanied minors.
Lammert had welcomed earlier Spanish assurances that nobody in that position would be moved to the peninsula.
The Ceuta city government has rejected the plan and insists the priority must be the return of all irregular arrivals, including minors. Its president, Juan Jesús Vivas, of the centre-right Popular Party (PP), said after meeting Rego that the city had accepted nothing and that its request remained the departure of all those who entered.
Several mainland regions governed by the PP and the right-wing Vox have also signalled opposition to accepting additional unaccompanied minors.
Madrid has allocated €25 million in emergency funding to Ceuta to help manage the crisis, announced on August 4 by inclusion, social security and migration minister Elma Saiz, on top of €5.5 million approved in July.
🇵🇱🇪🇺 Poland is calling for tougher EU migration rules after the Ceuta crisis.
Warsaw wants migrants who enter the EU illegally to automatically lose eligibility for residence rights.
Read the full story ⤵️#EU #Migration #Poland #Schengen https://t.co/etGSQUYYB8
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 6, 2026
