There is a lack of coordination and a lack of information in the distribution throughout Spain of the immigrants who are arriving in cayucos to the Canary Islands. The Government (and also most NGOs, except Accem) refuse to give numbers and the Autonomous Communities and municipalities are not always notified in advance of the arrival of these people.
This migratory wave, a consequence of the social and political crisis that Senegal since the summer, it is close to surpassing the one known as canoe crisis of 2006, which resulted in the landing on the Canary Islands coasts of 31,678 people. In 2023, based on Interior data and EL MUNDO calculations, approximately 28,000 have done so, and it is not expected that arrivals via the Canary Islands route will stop in the coming weeks.
In recent days, the arrivals of these immigrants to different parts of Spain have been gradually becoming known, and always through the media and social networks. Among other places, 321 have been located in a closed hotel in Almería, another 200 in Mérida (at the request of the mayor) in a youth hostel and 250 in a spa in Medina del Campo. Yesterday, the newspaper El País reported that the Government, given the situation of collapse in the Canary Islands, is preparing the opening of almost 11,000 places in barracks, hotels and hostels, including two Ministry of Defense facilities located in the district of Carabanchel and in the municipality of Alcalá de Henares.
From the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, the portfolio on which adults who arrive irregularly depend, do not give the number of people who have already been transferred from the archipelago to the peninsula. “They are arriving at all hours, we have to make transfers constantly,” say sources from the portfolio he directs. José Luis Escrivá. “We would go crazy if we had to exploit all those numbers,” they add. Furthermore, they affirm that they are not obliged to notify the Autonomous Communities or the City Councils of the transfer, alluding that these entities do not have any jurisdiction over these people. “A courtesy call is made out of institutional loyalty.”
However, this warning is not even occurring in all cases. The president of the Government of Extremadura, Maria Guardiolayesterday demanded that the Government offer information, with the aim of being prepared to be able to serve these people in the best possible conditions, and criticized the “lack of coordination” that exists in this matter.