Authorities in the region of Spain, Ceuta, in North Africa faced with the surprising discovery while scanning a pink suitcase: human silhouette.
When they opened the trunk, police found a boy curled up in it. A 19-year-old woman tried to smuggle eight-year-old boy from Morocco. She reportedly looked nervous when queuing. Therefore, the officer stopped her and scan her suitcase.
"When they put the suitcase under the scanner sensors, officers found something strange, looked like a man in a suitcase," said a Spanish civil police, quoted by the Washington Post.
“Hello, my name is Abou,” the boy reportedly said as he climbed out of the suitcase.
About was checked by doctors and taken into the custody of social services. “This could have had a tragic end,” a spokesperson from the Spanish police forces was reported saying.
Officers identified a woman from the Ivory Coast, who held a temporary resident visa for the Spanish Canary Islands, as the boy’s mother. The woman admitted she was waiting for the boy to arrive in Spain, having offered another woman a large fee to carry the boy across the border. Both the mother and the woman who attempted the smuggling were arrested.
A man from the Ivory Coast, who was identified as the boy’s father, attempted to go through the same checkpoint an hour and a half later and was also arrested. He said he was heading to the Canary Islands.
The incident reflects growing trend of people fleeing from Africa to Spain through the two Spanish North African enclaves at Ceuta and Melilla. In 2014, more than 16,000 people tried to cross those borders with nearly 5,000 succeeding. Most of them attempt to make furtive crossings by hiding in automobiles rather than suitcases.
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