![]() “The frontline member states cannot face the migratory pressure on the whole European Union. “We believe that the solidarity rules and the related commitment of all member states must be clearly defined,” the four countries said. The lack of a clear, common – and fair – approach to migration was spelt out in the letter that Spain, Italy, Greece and Malta sent to the European commission last week in response to the EU’s new migration and asylum proposals. “The EU’s behaviour is a mistake,” he says. If, however, Spanish authorities are failing to live up to their obligations, adds Segura, then so is the EU. He points out that the pandemic means repatriation flights are impossible, but says the migrants and refugees are not getting the “humanitarian reception” to which they are entitled. José Segura Clavell, who was the central government’s representative in the Canaries at the time, says the two situations do not bear comparison. “It doesn’t seem to be able to solve the problem at hand.”Īnd yet, she adds, Spain found its way through the “ cayuco crisis” in 2006. “This lack of humanity from the government just can’t go on,” she says. While the migration ministry finally stepped in and found accommodation for them, Bueno sees the event as symptomatic of a deep and troubling absence of political will. That day, as the dock centre was completely overwhelmed, 200 Moroccans were removed by police, put on buses bound for the island’s capital, Las Palmas, and left without anywhere to stay. The complaint had been brought by Onalia Bueno, the mayor of the municipality of Mogán, of which Arguineguín is a part.īueno despairs at the lack of coordination between central government ministries, citing the events of 17 November in particular. Last week, a judge decided that while the conditions at the camp were “deplorable”, they did not constitute a crime. Spain’s public ombudsman has called for the Arguineguín camp to be shut down at once on the grounds that it could be violating people’s basic rights. ![]() Those lucky enough to land on the Canaries find themselves pitched into a confused, disjointed and under-resourced system. Amid enduring conflicts, land border closures forced by the pandemic and increased controls in some north African countries, smuggling gangs have reactivated the long and perilous crossing, ferrying thousands of men, women and children between the two continents. There has been a rise in the use of the Atlantic route this year. ![]() Most of their fellow arrivals have progressed to better-equipped temporary camps farther inland, government reception centres or hotel rooms. The people held at the temporary centre – officially for a maximum of 72 hours – are living in cramped conditions, some in tents, but many sleeping on the sun-baked, rat-infested bare dock. Arguineguín, according to official figures, has a population of 2,309. At the makeshift reception centre, cobbled together four months ago and intended to shelter 500 people, the number of occupants has swelled to almost 2,700 over recent weeks. Nowhere is the strain and chaos more evident than on the dock at Arguineguín. Last year, 2,557 migrants arrived in the archipelago, up from 1,307 in 2018. ![]() ![]() Over the past 11 months, about 20,000 people have braved the Atlantic route from Africa to Europe, with more than 8,000 arriving in the Canaries in November alone. Almost 15 years after the “ cayuco crisis” of 2006, when about 36,000 people reached the Spanish archipelago in small and dangerous cayucos, or fishing boats, the Canaries are once again struggling to cope with the arrival of thousands of migrants and refugees. ![]()
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