Agents of the Fiscal Patrol of the Civil Guard of the Main Post of Costa Teguise have arrested this Wednesday a total of twelve illegal immigrants of Maghreb origin, who arrived at around 04:00 in the morning aboard two boats, one to Playa Bastián, in the municipality of Teguise, and the other to Caletón Blanco, in the municipality of Haría.
According to data provided by the General Command of the Armed Institute in Las Palmas, Civil Guard officers managed to arrest on land, at around 04:15 hours, seven males of Moroccan origin, including five minors and two adults.
First, four Moroccan minors (between 15 and 17 years old) were intercepted wandering along the LZ-14 road, showing clear signs that they had recently arrived in a boat. After activating the search device, the agents found the boat sunk in the sea about 50 meters away from Playa Bastián.
An hour later, in the vicinity of Playa Chica (Puerto del Carmen) the Civil Guard located another 3 Moroccan men (two adults and one minor of 15 years), verifying that they belonged to the same boat that arrived in Teguise and that they had traveled there by some means of public transport.
In the middle of the morning, another Moroccan adult male was located at the Cruce de Los Mármoles (Arrecife), who fled running when he saw the presence of a Civil Guard vehicle, being reached and arrested shortly after.
Second boat
A Civil Guard helicopter that had joined the search device, scanning various areas of Lanzarote from the air in order to facilitate the location of the remaining immigrants, discovered another boat stranded and beached, at around 13:35 hours, in the Caletón Blanco de Haría.
At noon, the Local Police of Haría located another two Moroccan adult males in the Caletón Blanco area, north of the Island, estimating that at least half a dozen more were still missing.
Escape and rescue by helicopter
In the afternoon, the Local Police of Haría rediscovered another two occupants of this second one - which raises the number of detainees to 11 until that moment.
Later in the afternoon, another immigrant belonging to the boat that arrived in Caletón Blanco was located in the coastal area of Malpaís de La Corona. He also tried to flee, running through a very steep terrain of volcanic rock, suffered a heavy fall hitting his leg, and injured his knee, which prevented him from walking. The Civil Guard helicopter incorporated into the search efforts had to rescue him in the rocky area after his attempted escape.
Given the impossibility of transferring him by land, due to the abruptness of the place, a Civil Guard helicopter carried out the rescue, evacuating the injured man to a nearby road where sanitary personnel belonging to a Red Cross ambulance provided him with medical assistance.
According to data provided by the Red Cross, the latter had to be treated after being injured, once, due to the inaccessibility of the place, the Civil Guard helicopter had rescued him and transferred him to the ambulance.
The patient presented trauma to a knee and another trauma to an ankle, but it was not necessary to transfer him to any medical center.
Dispersion
The Civil Guard, which evacuated the detained illegal immigrants to the Costa Teguise barracks to later make them available to the National Police, suspects that there may still be about five or six more immigrants from the two boats that arrived this Wednesday in Lanzarote, so it still maintains an extensive search device for this and various areas of the Island.
Several Civil Guard patrols and the Local Police of Haría and Teguise are participating in these search tasks.
In total, of the two boats that arrived in Lanzarote, 12 immigrants have been arrested so far, 8 of them belonging to the boat that arrived at Playa Bastián and 4 to the one in Caletón Blanco. 5 of these immigrants have stated that they are minors, which will be ratified with the corresponding bone test that the National Police Corps usually provides.
To these two boats we must add another one that arrived in Gran Canaria, from which 17 immigrants have been arrested, all of its occupants.
Third boat in Gran Canaria
On the other hand, another boat arrived on the coast of Arinaga, in the municipality of Agüimes, southeast of Gran Canaria, also at around 04:00 in the morning.
The Civil Guard has arrested in this case a total of 17 occupants, a group of Moroccans and Mauritanians among whom there was a minor.
It is estimated that the detainees are all those who traveled in the boat, whose length was 4.5 meters, although the Civil Guard was searching the area this Wednesday in case there were more.
With the 12 detainees in Lanzarote and these 17 in Gran Canaria, the number of illegal immigrants intercepted during the day amounts to 29 after arriving aboard three boats.
