A certificate proves that he was born in June 2003 and that he is a minor, but Anass has been treated as an adult since he arrived in Lanzarote by boat last October. Since then he remained in one of the facilities managed by the Red Cross, but now he has been on the street for two days.
“He is helpless. There are 17-year-olds who look older, but Anass clearly looks like a very young boy and needs attention,” says one of the people who is trying to help him, given the lack of responses from the administration. This person met him when he was at the Red Cross and he had just arrived on the island. “He spent two weeks saying he was a minor, until he got tired, because they didn't pay attention to him,” he says.
Afterwards, this person disassociated himself from the NGO and stopped seeing him, but has remained in contact with him, exchanging some mobile messages. The last one arrived at the beginning of this week, when Anass wrote to him to tell him that he had been left on the street.
The reason was that a transfer of immigrants to Fuerteventura had been organized, and several refused to go for fear that they would be returned to their country. One of them was Anass, who, like the adults, suddenly found himself homeless.
Since then, several people have turned to help him, but have not received responses from the competent authorities. “We have been reporting since Wednesday that there is a minor in a situation of helplessness in Lanzarote. It has been communicated in writing to both the National Police Station and the Prosecutor's Office for Minors and nothing has been done. What they do is pass the buck to each other,” questions the lawyer Irma Ferrer, who has personally become involved in the case and has been collaborating with the Citizen Solidarity Network for months.
“That's why we have reached this situation today, Friday at three in the afternoon, because the minor is sleeping on the street,” she stresses. Ferrer is referring to the protest that they have finally decided to carry out at the doors of the Arrecife Courts, where Anass himself has gone due to the lack of solutions.
“The immigration policy of the Spanish State is that minors in need sleep in the homes of solidarity network volunteers. That is the immigration policy of this country,” denounces Ferrer.
"He wanted to go to the juvenile center, he wanted to study"
Anass arrived in Lanzarote from Agadir at the beginning of October and came from a “very poor” family, which led him to take to the sea in search of the dream of a better life. “He wanted to go to the juvenile center, he wanted to study,” explains the person who met him at the facilities managed by the Red Cross.
According to the Police, the young man was born on June 25, 2000, which was the date they registered upon arrival. However, he has been showing a document for months that indicates his date of birth as June 25, 2003.
That single digit difference, those three years, are what changed his destiny upon arrival on the island. They didn't even do tests to determine his age, and he was sent directly to an adult center.
Now, the people who have turned to his case have been presenting a document for two days that even bears the Apostille of The Hague. They have spent hours at the Police Station, have exchanged writings and calls with the Prosecutor's Office for Minors of Las Palmas, but 48 hours later they still have not received a response. That is why they have decided to make public a situation that they consider inadmissible in a state of law.
