A group of illegal immigrants disembarked from a small boat between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. this Tuesday on the islet of La Graciosa.
According to data provided by the General Command of the Armed Institute of the Las Palmas Post, it was several residents of Caleta de Fuste, the only population center on the islet, who alerted the only police officer in La Graciosa after noticing the arrival of the group of Maghrebi people.
The agents of the Fiscal Territorial Patrol of the Civil Guard (PA.FI.TE) traveled to La Graciosa in a Maritime Rescue boat and, upon arrival, verified how the only local police officer on the islet had gathered and detained the 14 immigrants for almost an hour, who were transferred in the Salvamar boat to the Civil Guard facilities in Costa Teguise.
Transfer and expulsion
The intercepted immigrants have already been placed at the disposal of the National Police Force, which will be responsible for their pertinent identification and most likely for transferring them to the Foreigners Internment Center (CIE) of El Matorral, in Fuerteventura, or to that of Barranco Seco, in Gran Canaria, where they must remain until the Judicial Authority decrees the pertinent expulsion file, due to the [recent closure of the rejected persons room->https://www.lavozdelanzarote.com/article.php3?id_article=3040&var_recherche=sala+de+rechazados] at the Guacimeta Airport terminal.
On the other hand, early this Wednesday morning, specifically around 08:00 hours, the searches carried out by the Civil Guard allowed locating one more immigrant, the only occupant of the boat who had decided to hide, which raised the number of detainees to 15 people. This immigrant was located while asking for work on a construction site in the area, after having spent the night hidden in a construction site in the town.
Search device
The Civil Guard has maintained a search device until noon this Wednesday in case any more immigrants were located, and at the same time tried to find the boat in which they arrived, although the agents in the first instance suspected then that the skipper who left the immigrants in La Graciosa had most likely returned to his place of origin.
In this sense, a spokesperson for the Armed Institute in Las Palmas explained that according to the testimony of the detained immigrants, there were 16 people traveling in the small boat, so once the group of 15 Moroccans disembarked, the skipper would have returned to African coasts.
However, at around 11:00 a.m. this Wednesday morning, the small boat was located stranded on the rocks of Caleta de Piedra Alta, where the last immigrant was also located, who fled as soon as he noticed the presence of the Civil Guard.
The agents, who suspect that this last immigrant was the skipper of the boat although they cannot yet prove it, initiated a chase on foot and managed to arrest him. These last two detainees, which increase the number of immigrants arriving in the small boat to 16, were also transferred by the Civil Guard to Lanzarote.
Police sources reported that this Thursday morning they would be brought to justice and, if the Judicial Authority deems it appropriate, transferred by boat to Fuerteventura during the afternoon.
This Wednesday afternoon the situation was unsustainable in the National Police cells, where some of the 16 immigrants were guarded by officials in the same corridors.
The testimony of the immigrants, who claimed that the skipper had returned aboard the boat to the north of Tarfaya, was therefore false.
All the immigrants are men of Moroccan origin, 15 adults between 18 and 36 years old, together with 1 minor (between 16 and 17 years old), for the 4 who claimed to be so before the pertinent bone test at the request of the National Police Force.
The Armed Institute completely rules out that the group of Maghrebi people arrived aboard a ship, a hypothesis that was considered in the first hours, and reports that the boats of this type that end up arriving in the north of Lanzarote, in this case to the island of La Graciosa, depart from the north of Tarfaya and not from the El Alauin area, from where the route usually takes them to the island of Fuerteventura.
