The organization Caminando Fronteras has collected several testimonies from immigrants who have arrived in the Canary Islands in recent months in which these people claim that their rights are being violated in reception centers in the archipelago. In the case of Lanzarote, Caminando Fronteras reports in a statement that women residing in one of the centers set up on the island have stated that they have been living "for two months without running water (only in the showers)", as well as sharing a single bathroom with approximately one hundred people.
They add that they are "without Internet connection to communicate with their families", as well as without division of rooms in the centers. In addition, among the testimonies collected there are also women who claim that they have been "forced to look for clothes in the garbage" in order to dress.
Regarding the archipelago as a whole, in addition to denouncing "the precarious situation" of these spaces, the association denounces that "expulsions" of migrant people from reception centers are taking place "without housing alternatives." It even maintains that "expulsions of pregnant women have been documented who see their physical and emotional health and that of their baby endangered due to the stress of not having a place to go."
Caminando Fronteras also quotes B.C., a Guinean who arrived at one of the Red Cross reception centers in Tenerife, who indicated that he contacted the organization to report on August 24 his departure from said place, stating that he was "without housing alternatives and without the possibility of leaving the island" after having been "on the verge of death just a few months before, after seeing many of his companions die at sea." And after this situation, adds Maleno, "he was completely helpless when he was forced to leave the center where he had been living for six months."
Another of the cases they cite dates back to June when they claim that a pregnant woman "was expelled from a reception center in Tenerife without having a place to spend the night", producing "true episodes of collective hysteria in the place in the face of the disinterest of the center's staff and after the intervention of the Police in it."
They criticize the "lack of coordination"
In relation to this, the Caminando Fronteras collective states that since 2019 it has warned of the reactivation of the Canary route and a "high mortality", since they understand that there is a "lack of coordination" on the part of the sending and receiving countries of migrant people, who they emphasize are "more focused" on migration control than on protecting people's lives.
To this, they add, is added the precariousness of Maritime Rescue, turning "many of the people who travel the route into victims of fatal tragedies." For this reason, they understand that there must be a change of paradigm in the reception system of the islands, since "many" of these people have gone through the "strong trauma" of the migration process that forced them to witness the deaths of companions and loved ones.
"Thus, not only do they not have any type of psychosocial support, but they face the harsh conditions of the system," said Maleno, who added that the organization urges the competent authorities to take measures to appease this "terrible situation" and ensure a "correct treatment" to people who are in this "so vulnerable" situation.
For this reason, they ask the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration and the Secretary of State for Migration to open a file and assume their responsibility with these people, while appealing to the Ministry of Equality to protect the life and dignity of migrant women, as well as to the General Directorate for Equal Treatment and Ethnic Racial Diversity to ensure that the reception system "is not crossed" by institutional racism.
Finally, they have asked the autonomous communities to allow transfers to the peninsula when the Canary reception system "cannot assume the burden of all migrant people, thus helping to protect the life and dignity of people who put their own lives at risk" their own lives to seek a better future.
