“We are in a state of war”

The Canary Islands are in an unprecedented migration crisis – and the language used by political decision-makers has become correspondingly drastic. “We are in a state of war,” said Candelaria Delgado, the social minister of the archipelago, where almost 6,000 underage migrants currently live.

Unlike adults, Spain is obliged under international law to take special care of children and young people – especially with regard to accommodation, food supplies and access to educational opportunities. Deportation is virtually impossible due to their age, regardless of whether they are entitled to asylum or not.

Over the coming months, another 11,000 minors are expected to arrive in wooden boats from North and West Africa, known as cayucos. To accommodate them, says Delgado, “we are already planning to set up circus tents.” Traditionally, the route from Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal to the Canary Islands is the busiest from September onwards.

The fact that migrant boats land on the Canary Islands or are picked up by sea rescuers near the archipelago is a decades-old phenomenon. In recent years, however, the situation has become increasingly serious, with the main migration route to Europe repeatedly shifting to the Atlantic.

Only just under 2,700 people reached the archipelago in 2019. Last year, there were just under 40,000 – and in 2024, the period up to May will see an increase of over 300 percent. What makes the situation even more difficult is that the proportion of minors leaving their homeland is continuously increasing.

The situation is particularly worrying in Las Palmas, the capital of the popular tourist island of Gran Canaria. The homes are overcrowded, and accommodation run by private companies is hardly monitored. The public prosecutor’s office is investigating the embezzlement of public funds and document forgery, and a group of underage migrants filed a criminal complaint alleging mistreatment by home staff.

“We do not have enough resources to care for them (the migrants, ed.),” says the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, who has now – once again – asked the central government in Madrid for help. “We need a quick and effective response regarding the provision of military facilities to accommodate the migrants who come via the Canary Islands route,” he said. If no help arrives, the aforementioned circus tents will be erected. Otherwise, even the minimum supplies for the people cannot be guaranteed.

Clavijo’s party, Coalición Canaria (CC), governs the Canary Islands together with the conservatives of the Partido Popular (PP). The latter, in turn, is in power on the mainland in various autonomous communities, partly together with the far-right Vox party – and consistently refuses to help its party colleagues in the Canary Islands by taking in migrants living there. “This disagreement is absurd. These are the country’s own people who could help,” say political circles.

President Clavijo hopes for a fundamental change in the law in July, which could ensure that regions no longer have the means to refuse to accept boat migrants.

Meanwhile, Nuevo Canarias MP Natalia Santana criticized the “irresponsibility” of Minister Delgado. She demanded “real commitment” to provide adequate care for the minors and that the whole country supports the Canary Islands. She also called on Madrid to make military facilities available for the migrants.

An activist warned in an interview with WELT that without a political solution, the situation in the Canary Islands would soon resemble that in Greece, where images of migrants living in tent cities under inhumane conditions went around the world.

Vox cannot agree with all these considerations. The solution, said party leader Santiago Abascal a few days ago, is certainly not to distribute the migrants across the whole of Spain. Instead, the “pull effects” must finally be abolished, and people willing to migrate must not be allowed to think in their home countries that Spain is like a “land of milk and honey”.

However, it is not known exactly how Vox intends to close the Canary Islands route, on which migrants sometimes travel distances of up to 1,500 kilometers.

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