Ivorian attempts to smuggle son into Spain in suitcase

Border guards have foiled an attempt to smuggle an eight-year old boy into Spain in a suitcase. The boy, from the Ivory Coast was discovered at the border of Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. The suitcase was carried by a young woman of 19, which was checked when she crossed into the small territory situated in the north of Morocco. “Passing the suitcase through the scanner, the operator observed something strange, what appeared to be a person in the suitcase,” a spokesman for the Civil Guard said. “When he opened it, he found a child in a terrible state.”

The young woman who was with him, who is not believed to be his mother, was arrested. A few hours later, the boy’s father was arrested while passing through customs. A native of the Ivory Coast, he lives in the Spanish Canary Islands and is thought to have been trying to smuggle in his son to join him. Earlier this week, a 23 year old Moroccan migrant was found dehydrated in a container in the port of Melilla, another Spanish enclave in Morocco. He had spent four days trapped without water and without food.