Spain opens migrant camps in the Canaries expecting fresh influx

In a sign that it expects increased influx of migrants, Spain is launching a new migration policy in the Canary Islands. Spain largely refuses to transfer migrants from Canary Islands to the mainland. A huge jump in arrivals from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa occurred last year and it created tensions in the archipelago. Authorities have started moving some migrants to tents in two camps on Gran Canaria.

Four more will be opened in mid-February on Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Fuerteventura islands for up to 7,000 migrants.

They mostly comprise outdoor tents in unused military facilities where people can enter and leave freely, and are meant to house migrants pending extradition or having their international protection requests processed, officials said. The tents will be later replaced by permanent facilities.

Spanish government says that it does not want to transfer migrants to mainland because it can encourage more migrants to come to Europe. Migrants from north or west Africa come to Canary Islands in rickety boats often in hopes of reaching mainland Spain.

Txema Santana, spokesman of refugees non-profit CEAR, criticised this, saying: "Accumulating people in a reception territory like the Canaries will generate nothing positive for the local population or the migrants because it complicates their access to rights."

The government, he said, was acting too late, not coordinating with local authorities and not providing good enough living conditions in the camps.

The Migrations Ministry, responsible for the camps, declined to comment.

The government has repeatedly defended its policy while insisting the Canaries would not be similar to Greece's Lesbos island where a massive overcrowded migrant camp suffered a fire in September.

Around 23,000 migrants arrived in the Canaries last year, up from 2,687 in 2019.

Often seeking to flee from the coronavirus' ravaging economic impact on their home countries, they travel mainly from Morocco along a dangerous route in the Atlantic as smugglers avoid journeys from the better-policed Mediterranean coast, a Spanish Interior Ministry source and police source said.