In one week since October 17, more than 2,600 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and sub-Saharan Africa have arrived in the Spanish Canary Islands, corresponding to the whole of 2019. The authorities seem overwhelmed. The health situation due to Covid prevents any repatriation to their countries of origin or transfer to the European continent.
After sometimes a thousand kilometers and one to fifteen days of dangerous sea crossing, between 300 and 400 immigrants reach the coast of the Canary Islands every day, the island to Europe 150 kilometers west of ‘Africa. But this airlock against the European El Dorado seems to be bottled up today. In two months, the increase in arrivals of pateras or cayucos (makeshift boats) has increased exponentially and catches the authorities surprised.
Tested for Covid on arrival
When the cameras, helicopters and planes of the Spanish Civil Guard look at the migrants’ boats off the coast, they leave the four seagoing ships to pick up their passengers, regardless of whether they are in difficulty. Mostly they then land in the south on the island of Gran Canaria, the largest of the islands in the archipelago, at the quay of the port of Arguineguin, which in the last two months was transformed into an emergency center. . Twelve Red Cross tents have been set up there.
As soon as they arrive at the quay, their state of health is checked, their temperature is taken and a blood sample is taken coronavirus realized, they are placed in quarantine under the tent of the international organization, separated according to their date of arrival. They stay here for a maximum of four days and sleep on the floor without mattresses and away from the cameras. Police denied the press access to the scene and placed civilian vans around the quay to make it difficult to take photographic photos.
About thirty hotels in the archipelago requisitioned
Immigrants are ending quarantine at about thirty hotels in the archipelago. In addition to two weeks of confinement, they are free to come and go, but remain housed in these tourist complexes until further notice. On the island of Gran Canaria, 3,800 other migrants have been added to the rest of the archipelago on the islands of Fuerteventura, Tenerife or Lanzarote. More than 10,000 people have arrived in makeshift boats since the beginning of the year.
On the beaches of the giant seaside resorts of Gran Canaria, migrants today replace the English, Norwegian or German tourists who usually settle there this autumn season. A group of young Malays and Moroccans who arrived on the island six weeks ago are playing football on the beach in Puerto Rico with some young Canaries in the last light of sunset. They’ve been stuck here for six weeks.
“We are treated well, we have a place to live, we eat well, but we did not come here for that. I want to work, I want to build a new life for myself in Europe, ”said Aboubakar, a 20-year-old Malian who fled the fighting that punctures the daily life of his village near Mopti. The young man says he has not been informed of his rights and therefore has not yet filed any asylum application. Covid commits to, the borders are closed. These young people can therefore neither be repatriated to their homeland nor transferred to the continent. The central Spanish government issues permits in a trickle way.
Hotel owners are reluctant to admit it, but after a disastrous tourist season showing a decline of 66%, this economic decline has fallen sharply. On the other hand, when the United Kingdom and Germany announced on Monday 22 October to restart flights to the archipelago, the presence of migrants seems to bother some. “This gives a bad image that can tarnish the tourist economy,” scares the mayor of the municipality of San Bartoloméde Tirajana, Conchi Narvaez.
One in sixteen migrants dies during the transition
The archipelago had not experienced such a migration crisis for more than ten years. By 2006, more than 30,000 migrants had joined the archipelago, ”but there was no Covid at the time, recalls Jose Antonio Rodriguez Verona, head of the Red Cross for emergency operations with migrants from Gran Canaria. Currently, they are arriving in the Canary Islands and staying in the Canary Islands. ”
The five Spanish ministries affected by this humanitarian crisis are failing to coordinate (foreign affairs, home affairs, defense, migration and social affairs), according to the mayor of the municipality of Mogan, on whom the port of Arguineguin depends. Onalia Bueno calls for dismantling of Red Cross temporary facilities. “We suffer from the lack of communication between these ministries and their internal struggles,” she said. (…) The government has empty military installations that can accommodate thousands of immigrants and where a welcome worthy of the name to be brought to them, whether it is here on the archipelago or on the peninsula. These migrants do not want to stay here. It is a prison surrounded by water for them. ”
On Friday, October 23, 1,350 migrants were counted on the quay waiting to be diverted to hotels. With Red Cross tents saturated, about 400 men sleep outside and endure cold, rain or heat day and night. An untenable situation condemned by Arcadio Diaz Tejera, the judge in charge of the detention center north of the island, where about twenty immigrants are currently staying. “It is unworthy, inhuman. We can not treat people this way, he was scandalized during a visit to the unit at Quai d’Arguineguin on Thursday 22 October while paying tribute to the work of the Red Cross. We could have foreseen this situation upstream when the Mediterranean roads were closed. It was clear that the route to the Canary Islands would be intensified and it would be strengthened. “According to him, migrants beyond 72 hours cannot legally be detained by the authorities on this quay.
The strengthening of operations at the European Border Control Agency (Frontex), in parallel with agreements concluded by EU Member States with Morocco, Libya and Turkey on surveillance of their coasts, has changed the habits of smugglers. They travel further afield, often from Dakhla in southern Morocco, in Western Sahara or from the Mauritanian, Senegalese or Gambian coasts. A less supervised crossing of course, but expensive (more or less 1,500 euros) and more risky. According to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an average of one in sixteen passengers dies during the crossing.
