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Survivors in the port of Arguineguín: Not enough space for 2000 people
Photo: BORJA SUAREZ / REUTERS
You are sitting by the harbor wall, without shelter or protection from the blazing sun: more than 2,188 refugees arrived in the Canary Islands last weekend alone.
The authorities on the islands are overwhelmed.
Around 2000 refugees had to spend the week on the quay in the port of Arguineguín on Gran Canaria.
Authorities and aid organizations have set up a makeshift camp there that can only accommodate 500 people.
Some Spanish media write of the "quay of shame".
The conditions did not respect human dignity or the refugees' fundamental rights, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
The conditions are "pretty terrible".
People demonstrably infected with Covid-19 would have had to live with the other refugees while waiting for the transfer - without a chance to isolate themselves.
"We must not allow the Canaries to become a second Lampedusa or Lesbos for migrants."
Román Rodríguez, Vice President of the Canaries
Locals fear that the makeshift camp right at the port could become a permanent solution.
"We must not allow the Canaries to develop into a second Lampedusa or Lesbos for migrants," says Román Rodríguez, Vice President of the Canaries.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has meanwhile announced that the migrants no longer have to stay at the harbor wall.
A barracks is to serve as an initial reception center in the future, where they are to be registered and tested for Corona.
First pictures from the barracks near Las Palmas on Gran Canaria show 23 olive green military tents with camp beds.
800 people should find space here.
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Barracks in Gran Canaria: 23 military tents
Photo: BORJA SUAREZ / REUTERS
The route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the longest and deadliest to Europe.
More than 600 people died this year in the day-long crossing.
Some of the migrants start in Senegal, from there it is 1600 kilometers to the Canary Islands.
Other migrants leave the Western Sahara or Morocco.
Even a small miscalculation in the water supply or problems with the engine can mean that the men, women and children do not survive the trip.
More and more people have been using the route since the end of 2019, mainly because the Moroccan authorities are blocking the much shorter and safer route across the Strait of Gibraltar with Spanish help.
More than 15,000 migrants have already arrived this year, 5,000 in October alone. Among them are many people from the Maghreb, where the pandemic has destroyed the economy.
In 2006 many more refugees came
The Spanish authorities are contributing to the need on the island.
Interior Minister Grande-Marlaska wants to close the Canary Islands route again and therefore hardly brings people to the mainland.
Apparently he fears that this will encourage more migrants to cross.
The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, has been criticizing this for months and warns of "prison islands".
At the same time, the Spanish ministries did not manage to coordinate with one another quickly enough.
It has been clear for months that more and more refugees are coming to the Canaries, but there is now a lack of accommodation.
The government announced emergency measures only on Friday, but almost all of them were already known: The reception camps in the Canary Islands are to be expanded.
In addition, the government is planning more deportations and cooperation with the countries of origin and transit countries so that fewer migrants arrive on the islands.
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Arguineguín quay: no shelter, hardly any protection from the sun
Photo: Manuel Navarro / dpa
After 2006, when 31,000 people arrived within a year, the Spanish authorities had already managed to reduce the number again.
Similar to 2006, Frontex officials have now arrived in the Canary Islands to help.
Migrants have been deported to Mauritania again since Tuesday.
Spain has a take-back agreement with the transit state, but the flights were recently suspended due to the corona pandemic.
NGOs repeatedly criticize the fact that Malian refugees are abandoned by the Mauritanian authorities on the border with Mali - and that they have no chance of applying for asylum.
In the Canary Islands, too, many refugees report that in the chaos they cannot get access to sufficient information and a lawyer.
Human Rights Watch speaks of "serious concerns" about whether the right to asylum is being respected.
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