Father arrested after abandoning his son at Gran Canaria Airport
A man has been arrested after allegedly travelling to Gran Canaria with his young son before attempting to leave the boy on the island without documentation and return alone to Morocco.
The incident came to light last Friday when the child sought help at a Red Cross office in Telde, which immediately alerted the authorities. According to police sources, the boy reported that he had arrived in Gran Canaria by air with his father, a Moroccan national, who planned to return to Morocco, leaving him behind in Spain and taking his documents with him.
The Canary Islands Police and the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office took charge of the child and transferred him to a care centre in the south of Gran Canaria, where he remains under official protection.
Investigators confirmed that father and son had arrived together on December 15th on a flight from Morocco. Airport security footage provided a clear image of the suspect, prompting a search operation.
On 19th December, the man was located at Gran Canaria Airport while attempting to board a flight to Marrakech. He was arrested on the spot. A court in Telde has since ordered his provisional imprisonment on suspicion of child abandonment.
This is the second such case in the Canary Islands in the past month. In late November, police detained another Moroccan man in Tenerife after he allegedly travelled from Casablanca with his son and abandoned him so the child would be taken into care in Spain as an unaccompanied minor. That case was uncovered when the boy initially claimed to have arrived by boat, a story disproved when records showed he had entered through Tenerife South Airport. His father was arrested while attempting to fly to Seville.
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