Teenage migrant in Spain's Canaries sleeping rough after coming of age

By Borja Suarez

MADRID (Reuters) - When Abdellatif Bouhlal landed on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria after surviving the perilous sea journey from Morocco on a rickety dinghy, he was alone and just 15 years old.

Having been picked up at sea, Bouhlal spent three years in a reception centre for unaccompanied minors, but when he came of age he had to leave and find his own shelter.

With the authorities slow to process the paperwork he needs as a foreigner to be able to work in Spain, he was forced to sleep rough and beg for money, he told Reuters.

"On the same day I turned 18, they dumped me out on the streets like a dog," he said from a makeshift tent on El Cabron beach in the town of Arinaga.

Under-18s who migrate alone to Spain are entitled to government protection and aid by law, but those protections end once people become adults.

Bouhlal's story is shared by thousands of young migrants who attempt the perilous journey on the deadly Atlantic route, only to find a host country that struggles to cope with an unprecedented number of arrivals and integrate them into the domestic jobs market.

Around 19,000 migrants, mostly from West Africa, arrived on the islands in the first six months of 2024, a 167% increase from the same period a year earlier, according to government figures.

Disagreements on migration policy have driven a wedge between the conservative People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox, which ruled five Spanish regions together until Thursday when the PP backed a plan by Spain's central Socialist-run government to move around 400 under-18 migrants from the Canary Islands to the mainland.

Bouhlal, who was born in the north-central Moroccan city of Beni Mellal, said he had left his country because he saw no future there. His scant belongings include a bare mattress, a cardboard box with second-hand clothes and a few candles.

On windy nights, he covers his head with a blanket to protect his eyes from the sand being blown around.

Bouhlal said that when he begs for money, he faces the dilemma of whether to spend it on food or on the bus fare to the island's capital Las Palmas for appointments with officials handling his residency case.

He hasn't seen his mother in 3-1/2 years.

A tearful Bouhlal, who does not have a phone, said he closes his eyes every night and pictures having dinner with her and his little sister. "Not talking to her really hurts," he said.

(Reporting by Borja Suarez; Writing by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing and David Holmes)