The lack of fixed resources to accommodate migrants on the island of Lanzarote and the increase in arrivals in the first days of the year has forced 120 people to sleep on the Arrecife dock. Among them, eleven women and fifteen minors, some accompanied by their families and others traveling alone.
The Ministry of the Interior is in charge of the guardianship, through the National Police, of the people who arrive on the island in precarious boats during their first 72 hours in Spanish territory. Then, they are transferred to temporary resources and sent to other islands.
Meanwhile, unaccompanied migrant minors must be placed in the care of the autonomous community, which must distribute them in its available centers.
The island of Lanzarote does not have a fixed resource in which to accommodate migrants in a first reception situation, only the Temporary Foreigners Attention Center, a temporary resource that was installed next to the National Police station in Arrecife, and where the survivors of the deadliest migratory route in the world go through the police affiliation process in tents.
The Ombudsman and the Canary Islands Prosecutor's Office have already warned the Ministry of the Interior of the "endemic provisionality" of this resource, with a maximum capacity of 300 places and insist that it "does not meet the necessary conditions."
In addition, the Public Prosecutor's Office has already warned the Canary Islands Government that it cannot house unaccompanied migrant minors on the dock or use the tents as a home.
The Canary Islands Immigration Prosecutor, Teseida García, stressed that "she could only accept that this situation occurred at a specific moment", but it is not the first time that migrant minors have slept in these conditions.