This week, the Canary Islands commemorated the 30th anniversary of the first landing of migrants in what has become known as the Canary route. Three decades later, migration remains at the forefront of politics after the arrival of people in precarious boats from Africa has closed its busiest summer, with some 2,610 arrivals, according to data compiled from those released by the Ministry of the Interior. This is 19.4% more than those recorded in these two months in 2023, the year that with 39,910 migrants rose to become the most active in history.
This increased volume of arrivals in the last two months has brought immigration to the forefront of political debate and has led to an intensification of political clashes over immigration, after the hardline wing of the PP has managed to impose its discourse. It also coincides with a trip by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to three of the main migrant-sending countries: Mauritania, Gambia and Senegal.
The Canary Islands Government, meanwhile, continues to warn that traffic may intensify in the four months remaining in 2024. This is the time when this part of the Atlantic offers the best conditions for navigation due to the trade winds subsiding. And the data supports the fears of the regional president, Fernando Clavijo. 71% of arrivals in 2023 were recorded in this period; the proportion increases to 83% if we look at 2020, the third most active year since 1994.
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“The forecast is bad,” explains Ismael Furio, CGT union spokesman in Maritime Rescue, in a telephone conversation. “I don’t want to get into politics, but autumns have always been much stronger, and given that this summer has been out of the ordinary, the forecast cannot be other than to expect complicated months.” Furio also points out that Morocco’s limited resources and predisposition mean that ships have to carry out rescues at more than 650 kilometres. The sailor assures that, this Monday, the Guardamar Conception Arenal It even had to be towed to the entrance to the port of Arguineguín because it was in danger of running out of fuel. “We don’t have the means, Despite the minister’s trumpeting announcements [Óscar Puente] of ships which are expensive to use in the end. One day a tragedy will happen,” he adds.
Last year brought a new development in migration to the Canary Islands: the island of El Hierro, the least populated in the archipelago, became the main target for the cayucos that are increasingly heading south to Africa. This trend will continue in 2024. So much so that Clavijo announced this Thursday the launch of a health reinforcement plan on the island in view of the foreseeable increase in arrivals this autumn.
The main political battle for the regional president remains the reform of the immigration law, which should allow the mandatory referral of unaccompanied migrant minors. The Canary Islands currently care for some 5,250 unaccompanied migrant minors, compared to a capacity of 2,000, while Ceuta already has more than 480. The Canarian Coalition’s partner in the Government on the islands, the Popular Party, rejected on July 23, together with Junts and Vox, that the text prepared by La Moncloa and the regional Executive be discussed in Congress.
PP spokesman Borja Sémper on Monday pushed back an agreement with the Government, as the Canary Islands demand, and accused Sánchez of inaction and of not heeding the proposals and conditions put forward by Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party. This Thursday, Clavijo said that “we cannot throw in the towel” regarding the reform of the immigration law for the territorial distribution of migrant minors and said he could not resign himself to “the fact that in the coming months the situation will generate unrest in the population.” In this sense, Clavijo on Thursday regretted the “exchange of statements” between leaders of the PSOE and the PP on account of the migration crisis and demanded “common sense” and “sanity” to reach agreements. “Let’s sit down at a table, for as many hours as it takes,” he pleaded, according to Europa Press.
The nationalist leader had inaugurated an exhibition on Wednesday dedicated precisely to the 30th anniversary of the Canary Islands route. A photo of a recently arrived migrant with a couple of tourists served as a stage for him to ask for a different attitude from the two major national parties. “In the end they want to turn it into a political battle and this is a humanitarian drama,” he said. “It is neither a political problem nor a territorial problem and as long as we are not aware that the response we have to give to the African continent is a response from a country and from Europe, we will continue with this type of declarations that do not help, neither from one nor from the other,” he said. This Thursday, he launched a harsh warning both to the PSOE and, above all, to its government partner in the islands: “The only thing that is generated is a promotion of hate speech, from the extreme right, and a response that is not at all that of the Canarian people, who are resisting.”
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