The Canary Islands are struggling with a record number of migrants arriving from Africa having received 20,000 people within just the last 11 months.
November has been the most challenging month with as many as 8,000 people arriving resulting in chaos and crisis as the Canary Islands were completely unprepared to receive that level of newcomers, the highest number since 2006.
The International Organization for Migration estimates that 250 560 people died whilst undertaking the journey by sea in an attempt to reach the islands, situated just 100 km from Morocco, Northern Africa. According to experts, the rapid growth of those determined to get to the Canary Islands has been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as lockdown restrictions have significantly restricted access to other routes to Europe via Morocco and Libya. However, the number of people seeking to leave their own country has also increased due to deteriorating economic situations triggered by the outbreak. For many, the Spanish islands are merely a brief stopping place before they continue their journey to reach mainland Spain or other European countries.
The Spanish authorities were surprised by the number of people approaching the islands and decided to keep them in the port of Arguineguin in Gran Canaria where a camp was constructed to initially house 400 people although it is now at the end of November it was inhabited by 2,0600 people in terrible conditions.
The conditions were so dire that the Spanish ombudsman has even called for the camp to be shut since forcing people to live there might be recognized as a violation of basic human rights.
At the end of last month, Spanish authorities decided to dismantle the much-critisized camp. The migrants accommodated in the former Arguineguin camp were dislocated to a new facility in a former military base and to hotels.
Local authorities are complaining about the lack of coordination and sufficient support from the central government to tackle the wave of migrants, crisis because, when it began in early November, the authorities had no clear strategy of how to deal with such high numbers of migrants. At one point, local police took 200 Moroccans from Arguineguin to the island’s capital, Las Palmas, and left them there without a place to stay. The government then decided to accommodate some of the newcomers in a former military camp on the island which can hold 1000 but this may prove unviable in the winter as there is a risk that the camp will turn into a mudbath. Around 6000 people, 455 unaccompanied children amongst them, have been accommodated in hotels with their stay being financed by the Spanish government. However, all of these solutions are only temporary and the Spanish authorities are seeking possibilities that could potentially end the current crisis. The government is planning to repatriate those who are not eligible for asylum whilst agreeing to take care of those who remain on the islands.
As a reaction to the increasing number of newcomers from Africa, the Spanish government has decided to strengthen naval patrols around the Canary Islands and its representatives have talked to officials from Morocco and Senegal about halting the influx of migrants from those countries. Nevertheless, Spanish diplomacy has admitted that it is aware of the problems that Africa is going through.
“COVID-19 is destroying African economies, as it has also had a huge impact on European economies. We knew that one of the consequences of this pandemic was going to be an increase in migration,” said Arancha González Laya, Spain’s foreign minister.