10-year-old boy without a visa, parents leave him at the airport

Left stranded by his own parents because his ID had expired. So much for 'Mummy missed the plane'. This is the surreal story that happened at the end of July to a 10-year-old boy abandoned at El Prat airport in Barcelona.

The story went viral in the Spanish and international media after a flight coordinator at the Spanish airport reported the incident on her TikTok account. According to Lilian, the woman's name, it all started early in the morning, around 8.30am. After checking a flight and its documentation, the woman explained that she went back to the office. Once there, however, she was informed that the plane was returning to the car park because 'there was a child in the terminal'.

The Guardia Civil had in fact received a call from the Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan local police, because a child had been found alone in a public area. The little boy had told the policemen that his parents had left to catch a flight, bound for their home country for the holidays. The captain of the plane, bound for Casablanca, in Morocco, had been immediately alerted.

When questioned about the incident, the parents explained to the Guardia Civil that the child's passport from his country of origin had expired. The two had also tried to travel with the minor's Spanish document, but it lacked the necessary visa. So the couple had decided to leave the child at the terminal, entrusting him to a lady and calling a person to pick him up. All in order not to miss the flight.

Immediate reactions on social media. And equally immediate, according to the Spanish TV channel La Sexta, was the alleged mother's response. The TV network in fact published screenshots on its online site of messages 'from the person who claims to be the child's mother'. 'The child,' reads one of these messages, 'was not left alone. We left him with a woman while a friend went to pick him up'.