Photo credit: the Atlantic
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced a three-day visit to Africa, following pleas from regional executives to spend part of his holidays there and see the situation on the ground.
Brussels Signal reports that many Africans are reaching Spain, with around 300,000 currently waiting in Mauritania for improved sea conditions to attempt the crossing to the Canary Islands, according to the governor of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo.
Migration rose by 143 per cent in the Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African coast from a year before. It was up by 126 per cent in the Canary Islands, according to data from the Spanish Interior Ministry covering the August 1-15 period.
A journalist, Ximena Borrazas, said, “Here in the Canary Islands, the situation is tense. So far this year, 11,000 people have already arrived.”
“In less than 24 hours, 295 people arrived on Hierro, a very small island that does not have the resources to accommodate so many,” she said.
Clavijo had previously criticized Sanchez for not discussing the surge with him, noting that the PM was on holiday in the islands.
“Come on, I find it hard to understand he would go on holiday to Lanzarote, and we could not have that half hour or that hour to deal with these matters. But it is not up to me. I am available,” he told reporters.
But on August 20, Sanchez said he would meet Clavijo on August 23, when he planned to visit La Palma.
Clavijo is concerned about the situation of unaccompanied minors. He told the PM to amend the country’s Migrants Law to permit them to be moved from the Canary Islands to other parts of Spain. He said the islands now host about 5,000 unaccompanied minors and need more space to accommodate them. Another upsurge in arrivals is expected in the coming months.
About 300,000 people are eagerly waiting to travel to Spain in Mauritania.
A Mauritanian journalist, Mohammed Lemine Khattary, said, “The Mauritanian authorities want to convey the idea that some of the migration agreements signed in the past with Spain cannot be maintained under the current conditions.”
According to official records, seven out of ten irregular migrants reaching Spain do so through the Canary Islands. Fifty per cent sail from the Mauritanian coast.
