After Perilous Atlantic Journey, Migrants Await Their Fate in Canary Island Hotels - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/world/europe/migrants-canary-island-hotels.html
“After this crazy trip, I am happy to be alive, but I really have no idea how long I can stay here and where I can go next,” said Ousseynou Diop, 19, who boarded the fishing boat in the Senegalese port of Saint-Louis on Nov. 1.About 20,000 migrants have reached the Canary Islands so far this year, despite several deadly shipwrecks off Senegal and other African countries, as well as some that occurred just as the boats were reaching the shores of the Spanish archipelago. At least 568 people have died while crossing from Africa to the Spanish islands between January and late November, according to the International Organization for Migration.
The sudden influx of migrants has caught the Spanish authorities flat-footed, even though rights activists and other experts had been warning that traffickers were likely to divert to the Canary Islands after an increase in patrols virtually shut down many Mediterranean routes into Europe, notably from Libya.
Instead, Spain is now pressuring its partners in the European Union to establish a system to distribute migrants equitably across member countries, and asking Morocco and other African nations to take back those without a legal claim to remain, at a time when travel restrictions related to the coronavirus have greatly complicated deportations.“We are the southern border of Europe, not of Spain,” Hana Jalloul, Spain’s migration secretary, said in a video conference call with a group of foreign correspondents late last month. Other European countries that receive fewer migrants “should take into account our situation,” she added.The steady influx of migrants is hitting Spain as the coronavirus has stifled its economy, particularly its cornerstone, tourism. Since March, the Canary Islands have only seen a fraction of the 13 million tourists who came last year for the beaches and the mild climate, much in demand during the European winter. In October, there were 88 percent fewer foreign visitors than in the same month last year.
Since the summer, as an emergency solution, the Spanish government has moved about 6,000 migrants from tents in Arguineguín, a port on Gran Canaria, one of the main islands of the archipelago, to 17 hotels that have been shuttered by the pandemic, several of them in the beach town of Puerto Rico.The move was initially welcomed by local hoteliers, who received about 45 euros, or $55, a day from the authorities in return for providing food and lodgings for each migrant, but tensions have built up as the flow of arrivals has shown no sign of easing.Late last month, hundreds of residents demonstrated to demand the departure of the migrants, saying that their presence could deter European tourists as the winter season starts.
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