Officers from the Policía Nacional have arrested a 43-year-old father for abandoning his two teenage sons for over 40 days without food or money.
The arrested man returned to Morocco on the 22nd of November leaving his sons, aged 13 and 16, completely alone and with no means to feed themselves. Both the father and his sons are legal residents in Spain. This took place in an unspecified town/village within the province of Granada.
The boys had turned up at a Children’s Centerhungry and inadequately dressed considering the weather. They were fed and given somewhere to sleep, whilst at the same time, the centre informed the Immigration and Border Brigade of Granada.
The police interviewed the minors and checked that they were in Spain legally, which they were and had been since last summer. The father came back to Morocco in November and has only recently returned. The mother, who had not taken any steps to reside in Spain, did not come over when the father and children did.
The boys had survived on food from a relative, also resident in the same town in Granada as the boys, as well as concerned neighbours who knew of their plight.
Forty days after leaving the country, the father returned to their home in Spain and was immediately arrested by the Policía Nacional, who brought him before a magistrate, who placed a court order on him, forbidding him from approaching his offspring, as well as confiscating his passport so that he could not leave the country. The minors continue to live in the Children’s Center which is run by the Junta de Andalucía.
(News: Granada, Andalucia)