Canary Islands appeal for help after record 2,200 migrants arrive over single weekend

Thousands of migrants are crowded into a camp

Credit: Miguel Barreto/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The president of the Canary Islands has pleaded with Spain and the EU for help to deal with a massive influx of migrants over recent weeks, which has led to more than 2,000 people crowded inside a temporary camp on a quayside.

“It’s simple to evaluate the problem: the flow of arrivals greatly exceeds our capacity to receive them,” Ángel Víctor Torres said after close to 2,200 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands by sea over the weekend. 

Many of the new arrivals are being housed in a holding camp at the dock in Arguineguín on Gran Canaria, a facility designed as a temporary shelter for 420 people and currently home to five times that number. The Canary Islands government said that all migrant shelters on the archipelago are full. 

The islands’ president said that immediate assistance was required to dismantle the quayside camp, asking both the Spanish and European authorities for greater solidarity. 

“Europe is very clear that it wants to use us as prison islands, it does not want these people to be diverted to the continent or to mainland Spain,” Mr Torres said, adding that the confined conditions were a “violation of international human rights”.

Red Cross workers at Arguineguín have said the situation is unsustainable, and that they are trying to deal with the added problem of preventing the migrants from boosting Covid-19 transmission in Spain’s least-affected region.

As of Monday, the Red Cross said that 54 migrants from the camp had tested positive for Covid-19, and were being kept in a separate area from the rest, but there is not enough space to isolate others who had come into close contact with those infected.

Hundreds of people demonstrated in the streets of Arguineguín on Saturday at the presence of the camp, asking for an end to illegal immigration and more help for locals suffering economic hardship as a result of the Covid crisis.

Around 12,000 migrants have made the dangerous crossing from the coast of Africa to the Canary Islands this year, compared to less than 3,000 in all of 2019. More than 400 are believed to have drowned in the attempt.