Eight-year-Old Smuggled To Spain In Suitcase

Police found an eight-year-old
Ivorian boy hidden in a suitcase that was
smuggled across the border into Spanish
territory in north Africa, an official said on
Friday.
A 19-year-old woman took the case through
a pedestrian crossing from Morocco into the
small Spanish-governed territory of Ceuta on
Thursday, a spokesman for the Civil Guard
police force said.
"When they put the suitcase through the
scanner, the operator noticed something
strange, which seemed to be a person inside
the case," he told AFP.
"When it was opened they found a minor, in a
terrible state."
The boy said he was eight years old and from
Ivory Coast, according to the spokesman.
The Civil Guard arrested the woman, who was
due to go before a judge.
They also arrested the boy's father when he
tried to cross the border a few hours later.
The father is Ivorian and lives in Spain's
Canary Islands.
Thousands of migrants each year risk their
lives trying to enter Ceuta and another
Spanish territory bordering Morocco, Melilla,
in search of a better life in Europe.
Many Africans try to scramble over the
seven-metre (23-foot) fences that separate
the Spanish cities from Morocco.
Others smuggle themselves over the border
hidden in vehicles and cargoes or try to swim
or sail from shores on the Moroccan side.
Earlier this week a 23-year-old Moroccan
was found in a shipping container in the port
of Melilla.
He was dehydrated after four days cooped up
without food or water, since the container
was left unattended over the May holiday
weekend.