SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 11 May. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Las Canteras migrant camp, in the municipality of La Laguna, opened in February 2020 as a result of the incessant arrival of small boats and canoes to the islands, is almost empty and barely houses around thirty people.
This was stated by the representative of the IOM (International Organization for Migration), Hugo Tavares, in the last session of the ‘Conference on Immigration’ organized by the CGPJ and the Government of the Canary Islands and in which he reported that about three months they had 900 users.
Since the resource was opened, the entity has served almost 5,000 people, of whom 2,651 have been referred to the Peninsula.
Tavares has clarified that when the migrants are derived, their contact and guardianship is lost, which passes to the administrations, although there are workers who maintain a specific relationship with some of them.
He has said that a camp of this type is something “new” for the organization and consists of a “second reception” for migrants after the first health care upon arrival on land.
The camp was created with a capacity of 1,600 people but due to the restrictions of the pandemic it was set at 1,150 people and the usual profile of users corresponds to migrants in a situation of social, economic or medical vulnerability.
He also commented that climate change is another of the causes that motivates immigration and that the motivation to jump into the sea “is very great” because in many African countries “there is a day-to-day despair”.
Tavares has given as an example of this situation the case of an Uber driver, in Nigeria, who emigrated up to three times to Libya and ended up in a network of slavery until he managed to get out after being sold to a family from Ghana, and confessed that “I would do it again”.
He has indicated that the camp provides protection, accommodation and food to migrants but also other stimuli such as English, Spanish, theater, recycling or social games classes and has valued the contact that is maintained with the institutions to determine the majority of age of the users and refer to centers for minors if this is the case.
In his opinion, the IOM defends “co-governance” to adequately manage migratory flows and criticizes their use as a “political weapon” to “undermine” democracy and the misuse of social networks to “divide and polarize ” to society through the “fear of uncertainty” that exists in local populations.
Tavares has also lamented the “stigmatization” that migrants have suffered since the pandemic began and that they have become “scapegoat” and the target of “threats”, apart from the fact that they are exposed to “suffering” on the route and many “perish”.
