The senator of the Popular Parliamentary Group for Gran Canaria, Sergio Ramos, has demanded that the Government of Spain install the SIVE radar in the northern area of Lanzarote "before the massive arrivals of boats in the coming months". "The Government must try to stop the arrivals and prevent the figures from September 2020 from being repeated, when we reached 2,148 arrivals in a single month," he said.
In addition, he has asked to provide the Civil Guard and National Police with better tools to "deal with the arrival of boats to the Canary coasts and that the immigration law, international agreements and European Union protocols are strictly complied with.
In this regard, the PP recalls that, on October 7, 2020, the Senate plenary approved a motion which, among other things, urged the Government of Spain to install the SIVE Radar in the northern area of Lanzarote, within a maximum period of 6 months. However, "this period has already expired and the radar has not yet been installed."
Likewise, it is pointed out that so far in 2021, 8,222 people have arrived in the Canary Islands irregularly and that in the same period of 2020, 3,364 had arrived, which is 144.4% more. "The situation is unsustainable and we cannot reach the levels that were reached at the end of 2020 with more than 23,000 arrivals and with death figures at sea of more than 2,000 people," he adds.
Thus, Ramos considers it "regrettable" that the Government does not carry out the mandate of the Senate, even with the vote in favor of the PSOE. “It is intolerable that what is approved among all political parties is not put into operation by the Government and it is not the first time,” he indicated. For this reason, the senator has recalled that they have re-registered a motion so that the radar is installed "within a maximum period of one month and thus avoid more deaths."
Finally, the senator for Gran Canaria denounces that the Canary Islands are the epicenter of a migratory crisis from the African continent "unprecedented in the last decade", pointing out that "the massive arrival of thousands of people to the archipelago, in subhuman conditions and with a high risk of loss of life, has reached unbearable levels for any normal territory, especially in an island, fragmented and ultraperipheral territory such as the Canary Islands." Therefore, he considers that "the Government must provide immediate solutions and not abandon the islands as they have done."
In this sense, he regretted that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on his vacation trip to Lanzarote, did not announce the installation of the SIVE radar on that same island, which in his opinion demonstrates his "little commitment" to the problem that the Canary Islands are suffering.