Lawyers Loueila Sid Ahmed and Irma Ferrer filed a document with the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Las Palmas and the Ombudsman to denounce the situation of migrant minors housed in the Casa del Mar in Arrecife.
Following the publication of this complaint, they reveal that they have been contacted by "many people", including workers and former wards to expose "very similar situations experienced by other minors, with physical assaults, harassment and humiliation." This is stated by the lawyer, expert in Immigration and member of the Network of Migrant People of Lanzarote Loueila Sid Ahmed in an interview on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero. "Now we are going to see what the Prosecutor's Office is going to do with this situation and what the Government of the Canary Islands is going to do," she adds.
In this line, Sid Ahmed emphasizes that "this is a pressure cooker, where these minors are being violated and then we want them not to be violent with society." In addition, she stressed that "if what they are receiving is physical aggression, food in inhuman conditions, with hair, with cockroaches and a center where they have no care or information, then what are they going to transfer to society, if they cannot even interact with it, or go to the institute like any other minor."
"We are not lawyers who decide unilaterally, moreover, this has no cost or remuneration for us," said Sid Ahmed. The lawyers are in charge of accompanying migrants who arrive on the island and are in a complex legal situation. The situation reported reaches both of them through the minors themselves, by former wards and also by center workers.
"This shameful, reprehensible, embarrassing and inhuman situation comes at a complex time when workers tell us, listen, we are living this situation, there are minors in this situation, former guardians in this situation and we do not know what to do," she said in the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote.
Sid Ahmed and Ferrer held different meetings in which they collected testimonies, images and videos. "There are a series of tests that are decisive and cannot be denied," the lawyer defended.
In the photographs that La Voz has been able to access, you can see loose cables on top of the beds of the minors, ants in the bathroom, hygiene problems in the kitchen and in the bathroom, or lack of cleanliness in the facilities. They have also denounced problems with cockroaches, lack of sheets and washing of clothes, as well as assaults and addiction problems among minors.
After the complaint, the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare of the Government of the Canary Islands, Francisco Candil, has denied that the images "correspond to reality." However, the lawyer invites to ask for the record that the Prosecutor's Office raised in which she told the Government of the Canary Islands that they had to close the center. In addition, she argues that some of the images belong to fifteen days ago.
"The lack of assuming political responsibilities is so shameful. Moreover, at the same time it is incongruous because they said well we are saturated, overwhelmed and at the same time they pointed out that well this center was not so bad," she stressed.
On the problems with food, she added that "a detainee who has committed a crime eats much better than these minors who are in a situation of helplessness." In addition, she has linked "most" of the conflicts that occur in the center with problems in food.
While in the case of cleaning she stressed that "sending the management of the center to clean does not solve the situation." Well, currently the minors are the ones who are cleaning the center because there is no cleaning. However, Loueila Sid Ahmed highlights the importance of the Government of the Canary Islands as "father and mother" of the minors and they have to control their "training, their leisure, food, which are very basic issues and if these very basic issues are not covered, then imagine everything else, such as regularization or access to the market."
