The evicted of the migration crisis in the Canary Islands

Two Moroccans are living in a shack in a mountainous area of ​​Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in an image this week.Javier Bauluz

The routine of the Moroccan fisherman Said Daimallah in Arguineguín, in the south of Gran Canaria, has become a loop of misery and problems and is far from the plan that he envisioned when he embarked on a boat last November.

The 36-year-old man wakes up in the sunlight and goes to the beach to wash himself in the sea.

During the day he drinks the leftover beer he finds to avoid thinking and avoid the cold and, at dusk, when the containers have enough garbage, he scavenges for his only meal of the day.

At nightfall he returns to his cave, a hole in the mountain in front of a huge hotel, the tourist complex from which he was thrown out for fighting with a compatriot 23 days ago.

The Moroccan can't get out of the hole.

“I look in the trash because I don't want to steal.

I just want a job and fix my passport, but it's not easy.

I need a registration, I can't pay all the fees, I don't know how to do it ”, he explains.

• Photogallery: The evicted from the reception system

Daimallah is one of the dozens of immigrants who, blocked in the Canary Islands, have been left out of the reception system.

On one of the beaches of Arguineguín, the landing port for most of the boats that arrive in the archipelago, fishermen Ahmed Elhassnaoui, 31, and Youssef Arrach, 37, have also been living in poor condition for two weeks, begging to return to Morocco even if only in a deportation flight.

"Take us to the Police," they ask.

They eat little or nothing, get cold, pick up cigarette butts on the ground and drink.

“I came because I was working and had nothing to do but subsist, no matter how hard I tried.

I thought I would have a good future here, but when I arrived I found another life even harder.

Being on the street is being very difficult.

We do not give problems, but people change the sidewalk when they see us.

'Moros sons of bitches', they call us, ”laments Elhassnaoui.

There are many more like them, increasingly visible.

They are found in mountains, ravines, ditches, portals, parks, shacks, abandoned premises, at the doors of hotels and reception centers requesting their readmission ... In the southern tourist areas, but also in the capital of Gran Canaria.

It is not known how many there are.

Nor who, but they already pose a new social challenge for the islands, a region with rising poverty levels and its economic engine, the tourism sector, seized.

Those evicted from the reception system are on the streets for violating the rules of the hotels in which the Secretary of State for Migration has been housing a good part of the more than 24,400 immigrants who have arrived by boat in the last 13 months.

The Red Cross estimates that there must be about 60 people among those who have violated the rules of coexistence - by drinking or fighting - and those who renounced their shelter, but it is an approximation.

The figures of those who now feed them every day suggest that there are many more.

Only the Cáritas dining rooms in Gran Canaria this month have received almost 250 immigrants who live on the street after passing through the reception system.

The figure is double that of November and includes a significant number of young people who leave juvenile centers because they have turned 18 or because forensic tests have determined that they are of legal age.

Furthermore, the Red Cross calculation does not include, for example, all those who spent more than three days away from the accommodation and who are not allowed to return.

This is the case of Yassin El Assire, a 23-year-old Moroccan, who this Saturday had to sleep in a van.

The young man left his hotel to try to travel to the Peninsula via Lanzarote, the Police prevented him and when, without money, he managed to return to Gran Canaria hidden in a truck inside the ferry, the period of three days had already passed.

The COUNTRY accompanied him to the door of the hotel where he wanted to request his reinstatement, but they did not even attend to him.

"It is inadmissible that they sleep on the street"

Municipal social services, churches, associations and anonymous neighbors are cushioning the situation, but experts warn of the looming problem.

"Our social services have already sustained two crises and are quite precarious, but it is inadmissible that people are on the street," warns sociologist Daniel Gainza, dedicated to the care of vulnerable groups.

“The Government of the Canary Islands will have to confront the central Government to offer a shared solution with other autonomous communities and with the European Union.

It is impossible to assume alone this flood of people who demand attention that we must pay ”, he adds.

The challenges posed by the policy - Spanish and European - of blocking thousands of immigrants in the Canary Islands are increasingly visible and coexistence has suffered for months.

The viralization in social networks of some altercations, fights and robberies has unleashed new outbreaks of xenophobia in a part of the Canarian population, and the discomfort and concern of the local authorities is increasing.

The last to demonstrate was the president of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, Antonio Morales, in a rostrum published this Sunday in the newspaper

Canarias7

.

“You cannot concentrate thousands of people without resources in a territory, without attention and without means, and leave them helpless.

People struggle to survive and conflicts are generated among themselves and even with the local population, ”Morales defended.

“In addition, the lack of control and poor management make it impossible to detect those who have a conflicting profile or who may have a history in their countries of origin, which is a risk even for the rest of the migrants with whom they live.

First they have turned Gran Canaria into a prison and now into a prison without means or surveillance ”.

The situation in which some of these immigrants have been left has made unexpected characters react.

A businessman responsible for several tourist complexes hosting newcomers observes with concern some events in recent weeks.

The man, who prefers not to give his name, says that he had to take in a 17-year-old Moroccan boy for three days who, despite being documented, was reviewed as an adult by the Police and ended up in one of his hotels instead of in a juvenile center.

The boy went overboard with his drink and lost his place, and he has nowhere to sleep.

Every night life is sought as best it can.

“You have to pay more attention to these cases, even more so than those with the best behavior.

These are precisely the ones that need more attention ”, says the businessman.

"I understand that it is complicated and it is not possible to indicate a single solution, but of course it is not that they sleep in the street."