Boy, 8, found inside suitcase at Spain border crossing
MADRID -- A Spanish court has ordered the detention of a man from the Ivory Coast who allegedly hid his 8-year-old son inside a closed suitcase in an attempt to smuggle the child into Europe.
A police statement said guards stopped a 19-year-old Moroccan woman who looked nervous as she waited in line Thursday at the land border crossing in Ceuta, a Spanish city enclave in North Africa.
When the guards put her suitcase through a scanner, they detected the boy curled up inside.
A spokesman for the Civil Guard police force told AFP that the boy was "in a terrible state."
Border officers detained the woman and, later, the child's father at the same border crossing.
A Ceuta magistrate on Friday ordered the father held on charges of human rights abuse.
According to AFP, each year thousands of migrants make desperate attempts to enter Ceuta. A Moroccan man was found in a shipping container earlier this week in the port of Melilla.