More than 20,000 people have arrived in boats and canoes in the Canary Islands so far in 2023. Around 27,000 have arrived in the Spanish State as a whole, which gives an idea of the size of the Canary route, which accounts for 74% of the total. We do not know precisely the number of those who were left behind, but there is no doubt that there are hundreds of men and women, including minors. Calculations by some humanitarian organizations indicate that between 2018 and the end of 2022 more than 7,000 died trying to reach our coasts. Human lives swallowed by the sea in their risky journey from the African continent in search of a better future. The one they do not find in their lands for economic reasons, for the persistence of war conflicts or ignominious dictatorships. Aggravated by the Climate Crisis.
Their final objective is not the Canary Islands but to try to reach the European continent where they hope to see their dreams fulfilled. The Canary Islands are only the place of passage of this migratory route. A route that seems not only not going to cease, but will increase in the coming decades due to the negative conditions of existence of a continent that has enormous demographic growth (1.3 billion inhabitants at present and is estimated to be 2.5 billion in 2050) and with 70% of the population under 30 years. Exponential increase of the population in a framework of parallel failure to improve living conditions.
For this reason, Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-bc) has always demanded that the State provide the Canary Islands with a maritime rescue network, and a broad, dynamic and available humanitarian reception to be able to face possible migratory upturns, adapted to the also dynamic needs of a migratory route composed increasingly by more women and children. And, at the same time, facilitate their transfer to the European continent.
We also consider that international organizations should contribute to a fair development of African states and that the immense wealth they hoard should revert to the well-being of local communities and not be extracted for the exclusive enrichment of multinational companies and some minority, violent and corrupt local elites. The contrast between the wealth in oil or various minerals of many countries and the extreme poverty suffered by the majority of their population is as brutal as it is shameful.
Safe migration routes
In addition, NC-bc raises the need to establish regularized and safe migration routes that allow the incorporation to European countries (many of them with a significant demand for labor in different economic sectors, impossible to cover with the local population) of immigrant men and women, without having to risk their lives or risk being returned after the enormous suffering experienced to try to reach the European Union.
François Soudan, editor of the French weekly Jeune Afrique, points out in this regard that "the only potential outlet for Europe, where retirees will outnumber workers and deaths will outnumber births, is to depend on a constant flow of immigration, with most of the newcomers coming from Africa." He adds that "the reality is that, in pure capitalist logic, European governments should encourage immigration" instead of putting obstacles to it.
In that sense, we are very concerned about the content of the provisional document that has emerged from the recent European summit in Granada on the asylum and migration pact. In addition to transferring the responsibilities of its management to the bordering states (Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey or Mauritania) in exchange for money, without establishing conditions to respect human and democratic rights, it hardens the conditions to obtain asylum and accepts that European partners choose between hosting the quota that corresponds to them or paying 20,000 euros per rejected application. And it does not respond to the problems of border communities, such as the Canary Islands.
I believe that migratory phenomena, which are not cyclical and require a very different treatment that benefits all parties, continue to be addressed without courage and vision for the future. I also understand that it does not respond at all to the needs of the Canary Islands as the southern border of the Spanish State and the European Union in this area of the world.
The Canary Islands has a lot of experience in migrations for economic reasons, with massive departures of its population in different stages of its history. Especially to Latin America -Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba or Uruguay-, after deep crises that plunged the Islands into conditions of extreme poverty. The last ones in the mid-twentieth century, after the civil war and the post-war period.
Our Community is experiencing a significant migratory rebound in recent months, but in this case as a receiver, not as an issuer. It is not the first nor will it be the last, unless we change our location on the Planet or that, magically also, the living conditions in the issuing countries are radically modified. In addition, to the traditional factors -poverty, human rights violations, wars, lack of freedoms...- are beginning to add the effects of the Climate Crisis, which will give, increasingly, impetus to massive displacements of people fleeing natural disasters (droughts, floods, rising sea levels, extreme temperatures...) and their consequences in the loss of crops and in the conditions to develop life. It is not, therefore, something punctual, but a phenomenon that will accompany us and will worsen in the coming decades.
Minors
The current migratory crisis shows that the time has come for the Canarian society, in a unitary way, to rebel and stand up to achieve, in the Cortes Generales, a legal modification that obliges the rest of the autonomous communities to host a quota of unaccompanied migrant minors under guardianship in the islands, as was achieved at the time with the referral of adults. A distribution, based on the demographic and economic weight of each autonomous community, with the aim of enabling a regulated, safe and guaranteeing system so that the care of minors is shared throughout the State. And, in the meantime, carry out a corresponding distribution among our islands to balance the responsibility of care among all emergency devices and the reception resources that guarantee humanitarian care.
The approval, last Wednesday in the sectoral conference, of the transfer to other communities of some 347 minors who arrived in the Canary Islands is a partial and punctual positive solution that delays the solution to a reality that requires structural and permanent responses because migratory flows, with greater or lesser intensity, will remain in time given the difficult situation of the African continent. We have already experienced this formulation and it failed.
For this reason, from Nueva Canarias we propose an initiative aimed at social organizations, political parties and public institutions to demand a mandatory distribution after the failure of voluntary reception and to guarantee a humanitarian, fair and equitable treatment to the approximately 3,000 minors who are on the islands, with the aim of guaranteeing their better integration. A figure that may increase in the future.
In addition, we demand that the Spanish Government adequately size the personnel and resources of Maritime Rescue, the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard and all the reception systems. So that human rights are respected and referrals to the rest of the Spanish State, and its connection with the European continent, are agile. We recognize that of the 20,000 people who arrived in the Islands this year, some 18,000 have been referred in an average time of forty days to the Spanish mainland.
We will always be on the side of the Canarian public institutions and non-governmental organizations to accumulate forces in the arduous task of defending a humanitarian and fair treatment to human migrations, combating any outbreak of racism or xenophobia. We believe that the Spanish State and the European Union must offer responses from respect for human rights, the commitment to development cooperation and the firm commitment to building a world with greater levels of equity, as well as the establishment of regularized and safe migration routes. And, in the meantime, save lives, provide decent reception and proceed to referral.
