The Minister of Social Welfare of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Marci Acuña, explained during a radio intervention on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero that the fire in the La Santa shelter may have been caused by a short circuit, but there is still no confirmed hypothesis.
For its part, the Civil Guard has assured La Voz that "there is an ongoing investigation to determine if it was intentional or not", although this option was initially ruled out. Acuña has reported that the 35 users who reside in the center for unaccompanied foreign minors were not injured and were able to spend the night in the facility.
This space, which was planned in the autumn of 2018 as a temporary resource, has been the subject of controversy in recent years. To such an extent that its management by the entity Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI is part of a lawsuit filed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office for appreciating indications of embezzlement of public funds, unfair administration and falsehood in a commercial document.
The temporary center has come to house a hundred minors and possible minors, depending on age determination tests. It has also been a source of conflict, fueled by political parties that called for its closure and the recovery of this space as a shelter for the town of La Santa.
The firefighters of the Lanzarote Emergency Consortium were in charge of extinguishing the flames. Therefore, Acuña has highlighted their "effective, rapid and forceful" response. "They commented that it could be an electrical short circuit from a plug that had a somewhat suspicious cable," he explained to the station's microphones. However, for the moment there is no confirmed cause.
The Minister of Social Welfare was notified around 00:00 on Monday morning that the La Santa center was suffering a fire. "We suffered a huge scare," he revealed. The mattresses, which had been donated by a hotel in Costa Teguise that same afternoon and were stacked in an annex of this space, burned during the night.
According to Marci Acuña in the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote, the Cabildo distributed these mattresses to several shelters on the island and also to the one in La Santa, and those were the ones that burned.
This incident resulted only in material damage. However, Marci Acuña continues the debate on whether this space is suitable for keeping minors. "They require a home, a smaller space," he explains. This situation makes the counselor rethink how these minors are being cared for and how they can be better cared for.
To conclude, he points to solidarity and joint work between islands and also to the role of the state to redistribute the underage people who arrive in precarious boats. "Not only Lanzarote because it is the gateway, we must have people in the best conditions," he says.
