Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE) of the Interior included in the report of the Spanish Commission for Aid to Refugees (CEAR) that was presented this Monday.
In a press conference at the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, the regional coordinator of CEAR Canarias, Juan Carlos Lorenzo, pointed out that, by nationality, those who most request asylum in the Canary Islands are Venezuelans, Colombians, Ivorians, Congolese, Malians and Cubans ” without having exact figures.
Likewise, Lorenzo has indicated that 2022 “was the year of the impact of geopolitics on the Canary Islands Route” and has attributed the 30% decrease in migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands coasts to the improvement of relations between Spain and Morocco and the collaboration agreements signed with countries such as Senegal, Mauritania or Niger for border control.
However, this reduction in the flow, he has insisted, has not meant a decrease in situations of vulnerability of rights.
Regarding whether there has been a change in the trend in arrivals via the Canary Islands, he stated that it is still too early to tell since in recent weeks there has been a rebound more typical of the last four-month period of the year than of these dates.
He has also warned that in these latest arrivals the number of women has increased and the use of larger boats, such as canoes, which depart from more distant places, has resumed.
Thus, he has warned that, with this drop in figures, a “certain withdrawal” of the Canary Islands Plan is taking place and, therefore, means to address the migration crisis, at the same time that he has lamented the inequity of resources on the islands not capital cities like Lanzarote, Fuerteventura or El Hierro.
“The reception and care capacity must be improved on those islands with more residual means”, added the head of CEAR Canarias, who also lamented the deaths that have occurred on the Route, some 561 officially, although organizations as Caminando Fronteras they speak of 1,740.
Finally, Lorenzo has called for increasing and improving the reception, protection and guarantee of rights with measures such as a greater number of places in the reception system.
Juan Carlos Lorenzo has also considered the European Pact on Migration and Asylum a step backwards because it focuses “on a perspective of securitization and without guarantees of people’s rights”, and has called for it to take into account aspects related to solidarity.
In addition, Lorenzo has indicated that in CEAR they verify “serious difficulties” for the access to the right of asylum in the Spanish context” and has criticized the “illegal” returns that occur in places like Melilla.
All this, in the midst of great difficulties in accessing appointments to formalize asylum applications in what he has called “a collapse of the system.”
Finally, he regretted the “hypocrisy” that, in his opinion, Europe has shown, with the evidence that, with will, a refugee crisis like the one in Ukraine can be managed while the same tools are not made available to people from other origins.
The president of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, Antonio Morales; the advisor for International Solidarity of this institution, Carmelo Ramírez; as well as the young Malian refugee Hamed Samoura, who has recounted his journey since he fled the war in his country to the Canary Islands.
Samoura has recounted that he left Mali when he was barely 16 years old when he studied and worked to help his family. “I wanted to leave insecurity and violence behind,” he added.
Thus, he left a boat that left Mauritania and arrived in September 2020 along with 43 other people, 12 of whom were minors.
“It was a very hard experience, which made me mature suddenly. One night we lost the location and we were scared. I thought if it was going to be my last day of life”, expressed the young African, who during this time, and after obtaining a work and residence permit for five years, has studied a mechanical cycle and aspires to become “a good mechanic”. EFE