The Las Raíces camp is part of the Canary Islands Plan, the initiative launched by the government after the images of the Arguineguín pier in Gran Canaria, with hundreds of people arriving after risky journeys, sleeping on the ground, crowded in the middle of the pandemic, eating sandwiches, spending days stranded in the sun, without their rights being guaranteed. They were in the open air, in plain sight, making them unsustainable.
For more than a month, some 1,500 people (including around 50 minors) have been held in this inhospitable place, in the north of Tenerife. They are being held in one of the coldest, rainiest and windiest areas of the island, without sufficient shelter, without sufficient food and of poor quality (which is causing them poisoning), without hot water, without quality medical or psychological care, without fundamental human rights being respected and leaving them exposed to multiple factors that put their health and lives at risk. In addition, they receive physical and psychological abuse from the security company of the premises. All these facts have been denounced by the people welcomed and by the staff hired by ACCEM, the company in charge of this Camp.
The Government of Spain, using the Canary Islands as its Colony in Africa, has turned the Archipelago into a prison of banishment for the thousands of people who arrive on our coasts seeking a better life. All they want is to continue their journey to the European continent and reunite, in many cases, with their families who are waiting for them on the other side of the sea, but the government only responds by sending repressive forces.
Grande-Marlaska, Minister of the Interior and directly responsible for this Camp, has declared that he does not allow the mobility of these people because he has no powers, because "migration policies are the responsibility of the entire European Union and not only of Spain". It is obvious that the PSOE and Unidas Podemos government is treating the Canary Islands in this case as a territory separate from the rest of the Spanish State, making us believe that the transfer of migrants within its own borders is not within its competence. On paper, it is obvious that it is solely responsible and that it has the full legal possibility to do so. Something that, on the other hand, has been denied by Ylva Johansson, of the European Commission, who pointed out in various media that the Spanish Government has full decision-making power internally, within its territory.
It is shameful that a government that calls itself left-wing is so clearly violating the human rights of thousands of migrants, many of them minors, who are totally under its responsibility.
Therefore, we believe that the immediate closure of the Las Raíces Refugee Camp is necessary, where human rights are being systematically and institutionally violated, and that the Spanish and regional governments, both of the PSOE and Unidas Podemos, take charge of this situation in a responsible and respectful manner with human rights, which have been signed by this State and are still being constantly violated by it with respect to migrants. And allow the free transit of people locked up in the Canary Islands through all the territories of the Spanish State and Europe.
In its first months of government, Pedro Sánchez's PSOE welcomed the "Aquarius", with 630 people on board, and Pedro Sánchez promised to distance himself from the PP's migration policies. In this regard, he declared "We could have looked the other way, as happens too often with regard to the issue of migration".
We then ask ourselves: where is Pedro Sánchez looking now?