Ten-year-old boy is caught crossing Moroccan border into Spain hidden under piles of fruit and veg

Ten-year-old boy is caught crossing Moroccan border into Spain hidden under piles of fruit and veg in adults’ shopping trolley

  • A boy, 10, was found inside a shopping trolley in the city Melilla in north Africa 
  • Police stopped a Moroccan couple trying to cross  the Beni-Enzar border
  • It is thought the boy’s mother had paid for him to make the journey to Europe 
  • Both the woman and her male accomplice were arrested on trafficking charges

Hidden under bags of fruit and vegetables, this poor Palestinian boy was not having the easiest path to a promised new life.

The ten-year-old was found by Spanish police inside a shopping trolley being pulled by a couple trying to get to Spain from Morocco on Monday.

He was found inside a shopping cart when they stopped a Moroccan couple trying to cross the Beni-Enzar border crossing in the Spanish city of Melilla in north Africa. 

The Moroccan man and woman were arrested after suspicious officers approached them in the city of Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the north African coast, and a notorious smuggling point.

A ten-year-old Palestinian boy was discovered hidden under bags of fruit and vegetables in the city of Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the north African coast

It is thought the boy’s mother, who was found living in Melilla’s temporary migrants’ shelter, had paid for him to make the journey to Europe. It is not known if he had family waiting to pick him up on the other side.      

According to Melilla’s chief of police, authorities decided to search the pull-along trolley when they realised the weight was well above normal for what they had described as being there.  

The couple was arrested and the boy was sent with his mother who is already housed at a temporary shelter in Melilla. 

Melilla has been a hotspot for migrant border crossings as it is one of the only EU territories that shares a land border with the African continent. Pictured is a group of rescued migrants arrive on board of Salvamento Maritimo ship Alcor at the port of Melilla on Christmas Day

Melilla has been a hotspot for migrant border crossings as it is one of the only EU territories that shares a land border with the African continent. Pictured is a group of rescued migrants arrive on board of Salvamento Maritimo ship Alcor at the port of Melilla on Christmas Day

Both the 38-year-old woman and her 34-year-old male accomplice have been arrested on trafficking charges. 

Melilla has been a hotspot for migrant border crossings as it is one of the only EU territories that shares a land border with the African continent, with the other being the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, also bordering Morocco.  

Migrants are forbidden from boarding ferries that travel from the Spanish enclaves in Africa to mainland Europe, in a policy that has been condemned by the European Commission’s special representative for migration.     

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk