It is impossible to find a migrant who has something good to say about the camp that the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations has set up in a former military barracks in Las Raices (municipality of La Laguna, with just over 155,000 inhabitants).
Essam, a 28-year-old Moroccan from El Youssoufia, a Rabat neighborhood, summarizes the situation in English.
“Inside there are too many people, it looks like a prison.
The police are very aggressive towards us, it is cold, the food is bad and we have many fights with the Senegalese because they insist on playing football in front of our booths.
You can't be there ”.
10 days ago, Essam decided to leave the facility and camp together with around fifty Maghrebis outside the compound.
Is Thursday.
The day dawned cold and rainy in the humid area of Las Raíces, a place populated by eucalyptus trees at an altitude of about 1,000 meters.
Dozens of Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africans stroll through the vicinity.
Two vans of the National Police have just arrived at the gates of the compound alerted by the camp management for a fight caused, precisely, by the tensions between Senegalese and Moroccans and the ideal place to practice the beautiful
sport
.
The Las Raices camp is one of the six announced in November as part of the Plan Canarias, an unprecedented deployment of macrocamps in Spain.
The plan consists of creating a reception network on the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Fuerteventura, first in temporary camps, and later in permanent buildings.
The opening of the facilities, promised for the end of 2020, has dragged on for two more months than expected and, finally, they will all be in operation next week with the opening of the warehouse that Bankia temporarily ceded to the Ministry in the El Sebadal industrial estate , in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Since the launch of the plan, in addition, there have been some problems such as a flood of sewage and the lack of hot water in the Canarias 50 barracks or neighborhood tensions, which resulted in attacks on the residents of the León School, both in The Gran Canarian palms.
Ayoub a Kelaa is Moroccan and claims to be 27 years old.
He has left the enclosure to take a walk until lunchtime and visit his compatriots sheltered in the field huts.
He arrived in Gran Canaria in November after paying 4,000 euros for the trip ("vomiting for three days, almost no water and no food"), he says.
Now he spends his days waiting for a solution that will allow him to reach the Peninsula.
"But it's impossible.
If I go to the airport, the police will take my passport and send me to Morocco ”.
He is one of the more than 23,000 Africans who arrived on the islands in 2020, to which are added 2,044 in January.
Currently, the Government Delegation, number 11,500 irregular migrants in the Canary Islands.
Among them, some 2,600 minors.
The seven resources provided for by the Canary Islands Plan have a total of 5,810 places, expandable to 7,010, to deal with arrivals, as reported this Friday by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations.
Blocked in the Canary Islands
The refusal to enter the reception camps in the Canary Islands leads hundreds of migrants to live on the streets
The bad reputation of the other open facilities does not rival that of Las Raíces.
So much so that hundreds of migrants have preferred to give up reception resources (they are expelled from it if they do not return within 72 hours) and live on the street rather than be transferred to it.
This old (and desolate) military barracks currently houses 1,010 people, and can house 1,200 people, expandable to 2,400 in an emergency, making it the largest camp of all planned.
It is followed by Las Canteras (1,642 places), also in the municipality of La Laguna, which was inaugurated this Friday and will be managed by the International Organization for Migration.
The inmates also complain about the lack of legal assistance.
Ahmed Mbour, a 27-year-old Senegalese taxi driver who arrived in Gran Canaria in November, intends to move to Barcelona or Almería, where he says he has two cousins.
"I left my country due to personal problems," he explains.
“I asked the Red Cross for asylum when I was at the hotel in Puerto de la Cruz, but they have not responded yet.
I have spoken with some Accem lawyers, but they always tell me
tomorrow, tomorrow
... ”.
The Government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, however, assured this Friday in statements to the Canary Islands Radio Television that "legal advice is being provided and is guaranteed."
The delegate in turn assured Radio Nacional de España that the absence of legal advice "is something that is said a lot."
"So far I have not seen irregularities."
Minors
Mohammed Jabarteh, accompanied by a group of compatriots, wanders around a dozen police officers wearing bulletproof vests.
He is a Senegalese of average height and a boyish face, who claims to be almost 16 years old, although recent bone tests show that he is of legal age.
"I have my birth certificate that shows that I am a minor," he says.
The detection of minors, in fact, constitutes another of the great problems that the authorities have faced, and there have been numerous cases of people under 18 years of age housed in resources together with adults.
The Ombudsman has addressed the State Attorney General's Office on several occasions to transmit the complaints he receives about the malfunctioning of the detection of “especially vulnerable profiles, such as minors, women, potential victims of trafficking and people in need of international protection ”.
This week, the Councilor for Social Welfare of the City of La Laguna, Rubens Ascanio, joined the complaints and warned of the possibility that there are children among the people staying in the camp.
Accem numbers about 49 possible minors in the enclosure, from Senegal, Gambia, Morocco, Mauritania and Guinea.
"They are sent to us as adults, we detect that they might not be and we try to work," say sources from the organization.
“What we do is do an individualized study with all caution, including psychosocial reports.
Later, we sent letters to the Prosecutor's Office with a list of possible cases ”.
Migration sources consulted by this newspaper have limited themselves to assuring in this regard that "during filiation, minors are referred to community centers, thus complying with all procedures."
It is already noon, although the cold and humidity continue to reign.
The relative calm outside Las Raices is momentarily altered by the arrival of two buses with a new consignment of 100 migrants.
A group of migrants stop rallying along the way to watch their new neighbors enter.
Ayoub a Kelaa watches them and sighs slightly.
"Now everything will be a little more difficult."
Emergency health resources
About 50 Maghrebis decided about two weeks ago to leave the Las Raices shelter and camp outside the camp.
The solidarity of the neighbors was immediate.
Among them that of Sandra (not her real name), a nurse from the Canary Islands Health Service who has coordinated a network of a dozen volunteer health workers who treat about 70 people daily.
"Not only those who are camped, many also come out of the interior so that we treat the slightest pain," he says.
"We have found some more serious."
In that case, in the first place, they try to refer them to Accem or if they do not contemplate their illness, they have even called an ambulance to refer them to a health center.
Las Raíces still does not have its own doctor, Accem sources acknowledge.
"We continue with the process of hiring personnel", they assure "," but there is health care in all shifts and we are coordinated with the SCS, which has an exclusive program, with transportation to health centers.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/BOQSH7PVIJAPNOGFOH7TSNBODY.jpg)
