Hamza decided in September 2020 to leave his humble roots in Safi (Morocco), abandoning family, friends and studies to embark on a small boat in search of a future with hope in Spain.
After his arrival in Lanzarote, he was assigned to the La Santa Minors Center, where his first stage took place normally, welcomed as a minor with access to training and guardianship. As he did not have his papers with him, he underwent bone tests that determined that "we could be dealing with a person of legal age", after which a decree from the Las Palmas Minors Prosecutor's Office dictated in November "to determine provisionally and without prejudice to proving age by other means, his age of majority". After that, he was evicted from the center and transferred to a hotel in Los Pocillos (Puerto del Carmen) with other adult immigrants.
Despite the apparent comfort of the hotel destination, Hamza began a hunger strike demanding to return to La Santa with the minors, causing great concern among his relatives. His uncle contacted La Voz de Lanzarote from Morocco to try to help him prove his minority, providing his birth certificate in August 2003.
The jurisprudence of the Spanish Supreme Court establishes as a priority criterion the protection of minors who are in our country without family
After communicating the matter to the Department of Social Affairs of the Cabildo, the Red Cross was initially used, an entity in charge of the immigrants, determining its lawyer that no action was appropriate because he did not have his passport, despite the fact that he proved his birth certificate. The next step was to collect the administrative documentation of the case and mediate to seek a legal initiative in his favor, which a local lawyer finally initiated selflessly last week.
Despite everything, on February 25, 2021, he was transferred to tents in the C.I.E. El Matorral of Fuerteventura, together with the adults who remained in the same hotel in Los Pocillos. For this transfer, the Local Immigration Brigade established that "there is no impediment for him to travel without documentation", and he had to sign a document in which he declared, among other things, that he was of legal age. According to Hamza, he signed it "under pressure", given the possibility of being abandoned on the street.
Doctrine of the Supreme Court
Although the jurisprudence of the Spanish Supreme Court establishes in its judgment 307/2020, to an appeal for cassation from the Raíces Foundation, that "if a minor proves his minority and provides a birth certificate, he is not undocumented", the administrative machinery means that Hamza remains without protection as a minor and in a tent for adults in Fuerteventura, while his application for guardianship is resolved in favor of the General Directorate for the Protection of Minors of the Government of the Canary Islands or the Social Services of the Cabildo of Lanzarote.
His situation has also been brought to the attention of the Deputy of the Common of the Canary Islands.
Hamza's case has similarities with that of Annas, the minor who was on the street in a situation of helplessness and who was finally welcomed by the administration last Friday.
