The Court of Instruction number 3 of Arrecife has decided to release, with the sole obligation of designating an address for notification purposes, 44 of the people who arrived last Friday in Lanzarote as stowaways on a Dutch tugboat. All of them showed before the court their intention to apply for international protection.
Meanwhile, another of the migrants remains in the hospital this Monday. Two other people had already applied for international protection in the same Port of Arrecife and the rest are unaccompanied migrant minors.
The judge has framed the case as a humanitarian rescue on the high seas and states that "it is not even proven" that the 49 people who were traveling clandestinely on the ship intended to enter Spain irregularly, since the Zwever 3, the ship on which they were traveling, had the port of Antewerpen in Belgium as its destination.
The events date back to July 29, when the ship Zwever 3 left the port of Dakar, in Senegal, bound for Belgium. As the Emergency Consortium explained to La Voz, when this ship was passing between the African continent and the Canary Islands, it realized that there were 49 people hidden, anchored "to a cable" and asked to disembark them in Lanzarote.
Initially, the Government Delegation of Spain in the Canary Islands reported that it had requested the shipowner a deposit of one million euros for the maintenance of the stowaways and the return tickets to Senegal. However, they were finally granted entry to the Port of Arrecife for "humanitarian reasons."
Since then, 44 people have remained in Puerto Naos, where tents and containers have been set up so that migrants can sleep and wash. Of the initial 49, three undoubted minors, of whom there was no doubt that they were minors, were transferred to resources of the Government of the Canary Islands, according to information provided by the General Directorate of Childhood of the Government of the Canary Islands to this media.
Meanwhile, this Monday another three people have declared before the Court that they are minors, so they will go to regional resources, where they will wait for the results of the age determination test to confirm that they are under 18 years of age, as reported by the Communication Office of the Courts to this media.
The Investigating Body defends that the measure for entry into a Foreigners Internment Center, for their subsequent expulsion from the country, is not the "most appropriate" measure for people who enter the country irregularly and that there are "less coercive alternative measures" for the commission of this administrative offense.
In addition, it states that applicants for international protection cannot be interned in a Foreigners Internment Center or expelled from the national territory until their situation is resolved.
