The president of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, received this Wednesday the Minister of Youth and Childhood, Sira Rego, who, after signing the Book of Honor of the insular Corporation, held a working meeting to address the situation of unaccompanied migrant minors arriving on the island. During the meeting, the president conveyed firsthand the "extraordinary effort that Lanzarote has been making to guarantee dignified, comprehensive, and humanitarian care for these children".
During the meeting, which was also attended by the Minister of Social Welfare and Inclusion of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Marci Acuña; the Vice-Minister of Social Welfare of the Government of the Canary Islands, Francis Candil, and the Director General of Childhood and Adolescence, Sandra Gómez, Oswaldo Betancort highlighted that Lanzarote "has been at the forefront of the migratory crisis on the Atlantic Route and has assumed, on numerous occasions, responsibilities that exceed its direct competencies due to the lack of a sufficient and coordinated response from the Government of Spain".
“Lanzarote has demonstrated an enormous capacity for solidarity, responsibility, and commitment. We have stepped forward when the situation has required it, opening resources, mobilizing personnel, and putting all available means into attending to these minors, despite not having the primary reception competence assigned,” stated the president.
Between 2020 and 2025, 719 boats with 30,895 migrants arrived in Lanzarote on board. Between 2023 and 2025 alone, 388 makeshift boats with 18,597 migrants arrived on the island, an unprecedented migratory pressure that has placed Lanzarote among the main entry points of the Atlantic Route.
Faced with this reality, the Cabildo de Lanzarote "has maintained its own care model based on small-sized homes, favoring the integration, coexistence, and normalization of migrant minors alongside resident minors on the island". This system, supported by reduced residential units of approximately ten places, has allowed, according to the main institution, "the development of more effective adaptation processes with little impact on community dynamics".
More than 2,500 minors attended
From 2020 to the present, the island network of centers managed by the Cabildo has attended to 2,269 unaccompanied migrant minors. If the minors housed in the resources opened by the Government of the Canary Islands in Lanzarote since March 2024 are added, the total figure amounts to 2,570 minors attended to on the island during this period.
In addition to the resources allocated to the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors, the Cabildo de Lanzarote maintains the financing of entities that provide support to former wards who have reached adulthood and require accompaniment in their process of emancipation and social and labor insertion. In this area, the Corporation collaborates with the entities Tribarte and Más Familia, which develop housing support, guidance, and monitoring programs to facilitate the transition of these young people towards an autonomous life.
Likewise, the island president recalled that the Cabildo assumed direct management of a First Reception Emergency Device from July 2019 to respond to the growing migratory pressure, progressively reinforcing the island network for child protection and allocating human and material resources from different areas of the Corporation to guarantee adequate care.
Betancort thanked the coordination maintained with the Government of the Canary Islands during these years, especially through the General Directorate for the Protection of Children and Families, which allowed for the articulation of referral and care mechanisms that avoided situations of greater saturation on the island.
“Lanzarote’s response has been exemplary, but it has also shown the limits of an island that cannot face migratory pressure of this magnitude alone. We need greater co-responsibility from the State and real involvement from all territories to guarantee adequate care for these minors and preserve the response capacity of the islands on the front line,” he stated.
During the meeting, both administrations agreed on the importance of continuing to strengthen institutional cooperation mechanisms to ensure the protection of migrant children and advance towards stable solutions that allow for an balanced sharing of responsibilities derived from this migratory phenomenon.
In this regard, the vice-counselor of Social Welfare of the Canary Government, Francis Candil, thanked the involvement of the Cabildo of Lanzarote in the initial reception of unaccompanied migrant minors, “a task that it carries out with enormous effort and commitment in the face of a complex reality that requires the support and coordination of all administrations. From the Government of the Canary Islands, we will continue working together to guarantee dignified and adequate care for these children and adolescents”.
Finally, Oswaldo Betancort and the counselor of Social Welfare and Inclusion, Mari Acuña, reiterated "the commitment of the Cabildo to the defense of children's rights and to a responsible and humanitarian management of migration, while calling for greater involvement of all public administrations to provide a response in line with the dimension of a reality that particularly affects border territories such as the Canary Islands and, in a singular way, Lanzarote".
Add La Voz de Lanzarote as a preferred Google source.
Stay informed with the latest current news.