The Spanish Immigration and Refugee Aid Network has announced that this Monday it will file a lawsuit against the General Directorate of Childhood of the Canary Islands Government for the poor conditions in which, in its opinion, it welcomes migrant minors in the Casa del Mar in Lanzarote.
A situation that, as recalled in a statement, has been highlighted by the Citizen Network of Solidarity with Migrants in Lanzarote and that two lawyers from this island have taken to the Prosecutor's Office and the Ombudsman, given the deficiencies and unsanitary conditions of the center, where 55 minors who arrived by boat are being sheltered, who claim to live without cleaning, sheets or suitable bathrooms and among cockroaches and ants.
The Network emphasizes that the lawsuit it will file will be based, among other issues, on the contracting process followed to enable this property for the reception of migrant minors, in which it claims to have detected a significant deficiency, since the contract did not require "exact staff ratios nor did it establish sufficient responsibility in this matter for the managing entity, which has generated an assistance limbo for the minors under guardianship."
In addition, the complainants allude to "the direct responsibility of the Canary Islands General Directorate of Childhood, which, assuming the state of the center, has not allocated emergency funds to make an immediate improvement of the same, a restructuring of it or its immediate renovation, something that, like the contracting of services, could be undertaken at the same time."
"The lack of alternatives for their reception clashes with the existence of mechanisms in the field of law and public procurement to ensure that if that was the only physical space available, it would be given adequate conditioning," the Network adds.
The group understands that, "regardless of the lack of facilities, it is perfectly possible to undertake sufficient repairs when, in addition, the concessionaire of said center is being granted a monthly amount of more than 124,000 euros, as stated in the contract specifications in the State Contracting Platform, where the price per place and other realities were established."
For the Network, "the situation is totally indefensible. One thing is not having spaces and another is thinking that a minor, after warnings from the Prosecutor's Office, can live in these conditions. It is incomprehensible that just as the emergency was declared for assistance, contracts were not generated to adapt the facilities provisionally, something that is always done, as happened in the case of Ceuta or Melilla, as well as in Andalusia or Catalonia in the face of similar risks."
The general secretary of the Spanish Immigration and Refugee Aid Network, Rafael Escudero, emphasizes that in this case "there is serious negligence in the management by the General Directorate, which a court must determine."
