| THE MINORS LIVING ON THE STREETS OF MELILLA ARE NEGLECTED BY THE SPANISH AUTHORITIES | STUCK BETWEEN TWO BORDERS THEY RISK THEIR LIVES TRYING TO REACH MAINLAND SPAIN |
| The many homeless children who live in Melilla's streets might very well be the most tragic and ignored reality in the enclave. The older children are approaching adulthood; the younger ones are no more than 8 or 9 years of age. Most of them come from Morocco and arrive to Melilla hoping for better living conditions and future opportunities. However, once in Melilla they are confronted with public institutions that criminalize them. Violence, neglect and awful living conditions are used as tools to make the stay in the minor centers so unbearable that they leave them. |
| Under the derogatorily used acronym MENAs (Unaccompanied Migrant Minors), they have become the scapegoat of the city, guilty of all ills. This stigma has caused them to be treated with indifference and distrust and makes people forget what they really are: children, boys who direct their hopes towards the Spanish mainland and dream of a better future and a life with dignity, while being stuck between the Spanish-Moroccan border and the similarly guarded harbor of Melilla. | Abandoned by the institutions that should protect them and persecuted in the streets within a hostile society, their only option is to risk their lives in what they call 'risky': to sneak into one of the ferries that will cross those two hundred kilometers of sea that separates them from their dream of Europe. A dangerous attempt in which too many have lost their lives. |
IMPRINT
CONTACT
USAGE OF PHOTOGRAPHS
Bastian Bernarding
contact@borderlinemelilla.com
Contact us at
contact@borderlinemelilla.com
We take care of your requests at
contact@borderlinemelilla.com