A migrant camp has been cleared in the port of Arguineguín on Gran Canaria. More than 800 migrants have been moved to other reception locations, in Gran Canaria itself or other Canary Islands.
The tents on the quay were erected in August and were intended for up to 400 migrants. They were registered there and tested for the coronavirus.
At its peak, in mid-November, 2,600 migrants stayed. As a result, there were too few sanitary facilities and many migrants only had a thin blanket to sleep. There were also stories of people who stayed in the port for three weeks, although there is a legal maximum of 72 hours.
The dire circumstances led to criticism from human rights organizations and the Spanish Ombudsman, who asked the Ministry of the Interior to close the facility “immediately”.
Hundreds of dead on the crossing
This year, at least 20,000 migrants from Africa have already made the crossing to the Canary Islands. In the same period last year there were more than 2,500, reports the International Organization for Migration. He has calculated that at least 500 people have already drowned during the crossing this year. The shortest distance between the archipelago and the African mainland is about 100 kilometers.
According to the police on the islands, about 70 percent of the migrants come from Morocco, the newspaper reports The country. About 70 percent of that group departed from the port of Dakhla, in Western Sahara.
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