Catalonia will take in as many underage Ceuta and Melilla migrants 'as needed'

ERC's Aragonès tells Vox he will respond to humanitarian crisis by "combatting far-right hatred"

An unaccompanied minor attempting to make his way over the Ceuta border wall (Courtesy of Pedro Armestre/Save the Children) / ACN

ACN | Barcelona

First published: May 21, 2021 02:22 PM

In light of the humanitarian crisis taking place at Spain's enclaves in Morocco, which has seen several thousand migrants breach the Ceuta and Melilla borders this week, Catalonia will take in as many unaccompanied minors "as needed."

This is what Esquerra's Pere Aragonès told far-right Vox's Ignacio Garriga during the debate that took place in Parliament on Friday shortly before becoming Catalonia's 132^nd president.

"That is what solidarity looks like," Aragonès argued, calling taking in underage migrants "a moral imperative" and necessary for "combatting far-right hatred."

"Mr. Garriga, they shall not pass," he concluded, emulating the slogan of anti-fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Garriga, who expressed his support for the Spanish army and police forces, accused Aragonès of being "complicit with the kidnapping of Moroccan children."

According to Spanish interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, as of Friday, over 6,500 people of the 8,000 migrants that arrived in Ceuta the past week have already been deported back to Morocco.

A far smaller number of people have also entered Spanish territory irregularly via Melilla, the autonomous city some 225 kilometers east of Ceuta.