Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has assigned responsibility for the unaccompanied minors still seen on Ceuta’s streets to the city’s president Juan Jesús Vivas attributed. Asked by a reporter about the situation of the children, he said on Wednesday at the Congreso de los Diputados: “Ask Vivas.” The exchange followed a heated parliamentary question session in which the opposition accused the government of failing to manage the migration situation in the North African exclave.
The previous day, Ángel Víctor Torres, Minister for Territorial Policy and, as head of the “mando único”, responsible for overall coordination, warned that the crisis would continue as long as migrants—including many minors—remained in public spaces. He asked the city administration to cooperate more closely to speed up registration and accommodation. Media outlets quoted government figures indicating that several hundred children were still outside care facilities.
Sánchez and the leader of the Partido Popular, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, clashed fiercely in the chamber. Feijóo criticised the fact that people were still visible in the city weeks after the mass arrivals and demanded information about talks with Morocco. He accused the government of entrenching the crisis, or of being unable to deal with it. Sánchez rejected the accusations and pointed to the autonomous city’s responsibilities for child protection and to support measures already approved by the state.
On 1 September, the government adopted a package of measures to ease pressure on Ceuta by means of Real Decreto-ley 22/2026 . The text was published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado and provides, among other things, for additional accommodation capacity, budget support and closer coordination between state and local services. In practice, implementation depends on available places, staff and the city’s cooperation.
Facts, attributions and unresolved issues are currently clearly distinct: it is established that Madrid has expanded the coordination framework and approved financial assistance. At the same time, the central government holds the city administration partly responsible for the swift registration and care of minors. The PP, for its part, is calling for faster procedures and swift transfers to Morocco, which depend on bilateral coordination in legal and practical terms. The government gave no specific deadlines. What is clear is that the situation continues to put considerable pressure on local services, and the political dispute over responsibilities is making a solution more difficult.
Editor: Phillipe Schmidt-Araguin (Article created with AI assistance).