In Barcelona, two young Guinean migrants, Bouba and Lamine, are facing homelessness after prosecutors declared them adults, despite passport evidence showing they are still under 18. The decision led to their removal from a centre for minors and left them without state protection.
They have been staying for several weeks at the Santa Anna parish hospital of campaign in Ciutat Vella, which has become a stopgap shelter for people with nowhere else to go. Peio Sánchez, the parish rector, said about 35 new people arrive there every Tuesday asking for help, and around three of them are young migrants who have ended up on the street.
Their case is now being reviewed by the lawyers' cooperative Iacta. Elizabet Ureña, a migration programme lawyer at Caritas Barcelona, said that for a minor to begin the extraordinary regularisation process, they need a legal representative, such as their parents, the Dgppia, or someone appointed by a judge.
The Direcció General de Prevenció i Protecció a la Infància i l’Adolescència (Dgppia) stopped protecting Bouba and Lamine after the prosecutor's age assessments, which went against their official documents. Mar Soriano, an Iacta lawyer, said that if the system worked properly, minors should have a residence permit three months after arriving in Spain, as set out in the Immigration Regulations.
Appeals have been lodged in both cases. Iacta said it helped 40 people in similar situations in 2025, and some have since turned 18 and can now apply for extraordinary regularisation. Others remain in the same precarious position, with no clear route to housing, education or work.
Lamine said his journey began in Guinea Conakry shortly before his 16th birthday, without documents. He travelled through Mauritania, then by boat to El Hierro in the Canary Islands in January 2025. After time in minor centres there, an NGO helped him travel to Madrid, where he obtained a passport from his country's embassy showing a birth date in February 2009. Bouba followed a similar route, later getting a passport in Madrid with a birth date of December 2008. Both were later housed in a centre in the Maresme area before age tests led to their expulsion and homelessness.
The case underlines the legal and social gaps facing unaccompanied migrant minors in Catalonia and Spain. It also shows how quickly a disputed age assessment can leave young people in Barcelona without protection, support or a stable place to sleep.
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Originally published by La Vanguardia Barcelona. Read original article.
