Bouba and Lamine, both from Guinea Conakry, have spent a long time outdoors after being expelled in 2026 from a youth center of the Direcció General de Prevenció i Protecció a la Infància i l’ Adolescència (Dgppia) when the prosecutor’s office ruled that they were adults, although their passports indicate that they have not yet turned 18. “Every Tuesday, about 35 new people arrive at the Santa Anna field hospital asking for help, of which an average of three are young migrants who have ended up outdoors,” explains the rector of this parish in Ciutat Vella, Peio Sánchez. Bouba and Lamine have been taken in by this entity for a few weeks now.
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“They are more vulnerable kids because they have been in a center and overnight find themselves on the street,” Sánchez considers, who regrets the legal limbo in which Bouba and Lamine find themselves.
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Lamine left Guinea Conakry shortly before turning 16; he obtained his passport at the Madrid embassy
The Iacta lawyers’ cooperative is studying the case of both since the circumstance arises that by proving with their passport that they are under 18 and that they are alone here, they cannot apply for the extraordinary regularization of migrants. “For a minor to start this process, they must have a legal representative, whether their parents, the Dgppia, or someone a judge has determined to be the guardian,” specifies Elizabet Ureña, lawyer responsible for the Migration program of Caritas Barcelona. But, on the other hand, the Dgppia stopped protecting Bouba and Lamine after the aforementioned age tests by the prosecutor’s office.
“If the system worked, minors should have the residence permit three months after arriving in Spain, as established by the Immigration Regulation,” points out Iacta lawyer Mar Soriano. After the issuance of the decree that determined their majority age and left them without protection, appeals were filed in both cases, adds Soriano.
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“This situation affects many young people; in 2025 we accompanied 40 in similar cases, some are now adults and can apply for extraordinary regularization, but others cannot,” points out the Iacta lawyer. Although they are aware that neither Bouba nor Lamine meet the requirements, they do not rule out starting this route to make this reality visible.
Lamine recounts that he left Guinea Conakry shortly before turning 16 without documentation. He arrived in Mauritania and there boarded a boat to El Hierro in January 2025. He spent several months in youth centers on the islands, then was taken in by an NGO and traveled to Madrid where he applied for a passport at his country’s embassy, which indicates he was born in February 2009. Bouba’s itinerary was similar; he also obtained his passport in the capital (it states he was born in December 2008) and ended his journey in Catalonia. A few weeks after being taken in at a center in Maresme, after the age tests, they were left on the street.
