Lanzarote is the Canary Island that has received the most migrants from North Africa in 2023. Its proximity to the territories from which precarious boats depart, Morocco and Western Sahara, Senegal and Mauritania, makes it the first piece of land they encounter in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Although Lanzarote receives more people than any other island, the people who reach the island do not stay there for long.
To cope with the initial reception of foreign people, the Ministry of Migration has the Montaña Mina center, located on the road between San Bartolomé and Arrecife, which has a capacity for a hundred people. In particular, it is designed to accommodate women and family units arriving in Lanzarote in precarious boats. The head of Accem in the Canary Islands, Paco Navarro, told La Voz that this space also accommodates male migrants when necessary.
"The priority is to welcome women and family units, but in case of need we also welcome men, always having security guarantees and separate spaces," explains the head of the NGO that manages this space in Lanzarote.
Paco Navarro explains that this space welcomes "vulnerable profiles", but the "system is flexible" and also allows to expand the number of beds when a spike in arrivals requires it. "The men who stay do so for logistical reasons and the availability of places, the vast majority of people who arrive are adult men, so that means there are more places for adults," he tells La Voz. He also says that Montaña Mina always tries "to have space available in case women, family units arrive or if there is a large influx of arrivals".
Two weeks ago, the center had around 85 people staying, of which 30 were women and families. Thus, the rest are men. "Within our center in Lanzarote we have not had any serious incidents related to the coexistence between men and women. In fact, the coexistence is usually quite peaceful, it is a center, in quotation marks, familiar because it is a very small, collected center and the coexistence is very good," he adds.
The process that is carried out with families
When a family arrives at the Montaña Mina center, they go through a process to take a paternity or maternity test. After verifying the family relationship and working to detect possible vulnerabilities in minors, they are usually referred to other resources with less accommodation capacity and where the attention is "more individualized". Sometimes these transfers are also made before having the results of the tests.
The Montaña Mina center also has a psychological care service, a social intervention team, health personnel, interpreters and legal assistance. Likewise, the head of the NGO Accem in the Canary Islands reveals that there is no "homogeneous profile" of the people who stay in this space. "In most cases they are single-parent families where the mother travels alone with the children, but we also have cases of fathers with children or both parents with the family," exemplifies Paco Navarro.
Regarding the time they stay in this space, the person in charge of the centers in the Canary Islands assures that "they can stay as long as they need". At the same time, he points out that "we are an Emergency Center and we never leave anyone without resources, we have never done it and we are not going to do it. In the end it depends a lot, above all, on the availability of other comprehensive reception resources for vulnerable people and on the places in other larger centers," he asserts.
When there is a rapid increase in arrivals that prevents referrals from being made more quickly and the Montaña Mina center is full, there are other resources in Lanzarote and on other islands of the Archipelago to transfer women and families with children. "We always want to have places available," explains Paco Navarro. In this line, he adds that it is a 24-hour center, so transfers can be made at any time of the day. "We have a very close and daily contact with the Police for these referrals, when they activate it we collect them, it can be in the morning, afternoon, weekend or at night."
Regarding the two women, the baby and the 4-year-old child who slept outdoors on the Puerto Naos dock along with fifty people due to lack of resources, the head of the centers managed by Accem in the Canary Islands defends that he has no competence within the dock. "I don't know if there were people who slept on the dock. We certainly, even if we have the number of places, if we have to set up more beds, we set them up so that people don't do it on the street."
