Escrivá promises to continue reporting on the transfer of migrants from the Canary Islands

Madrid, October 31 (EFE) migrants from the Canary Islands to the peninsula, after a week of criticism from the PP city council and the community for the lack of cooperation.

After a meeting for more than three hours with the mayor of the city and the councils of the autonomous regions to announce the tools to respond to the migration problems affecting the Canary Islands, Escrivá explains that the data will be more fluid, but “taking into account that the situation is moving very quickly and changes cannot be expected for several days, “a source from the Ministry explained to EFE.

A sector meeting will be called, as PP requested

At the request of some participants, he also agreed to hold a meeting in the sector, requested a few days ago by the PP, “although his situation is necessary to resolve issues of general immigration policy and not crisis management,” they clarified. the same place.

A commitment was also made to create “more effective” information, communication and coordination, especially with local organizations, which do not exist on the sector meetings.

At the meeting, most leaders expressed their solidarity with the Canary Islands and their willingness to help in this situation; The most common request is to ask for more information and for it to arrive faster, to know how long migrants can stay in different areas and to create more cooperation so that the social services can work better, if necessary, requests according to the work of the Ministry.

The video conference, which was also attended by the president of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), María José Pelayo, was called after a week of criticism of the government by the councils in cities and communities that are controlled by PP due to lack of cooperation. and do not tell them about the transfer to the peninsula of hundreds of migrants arriving in the Canary Islands, where this October there has been an unprecedented influx since the light cayucos problem in 2006.

There will be no “significant” health effects

During the video conference, Escrivá recalled that the reception was planned to manage the situation of more arrivals, such as what happened in the summer of 2021 due to the fall of Kabul (2,400 Afghans arrived in 9 days) and at the beginning of 2023. of the result of the war in Ukraine (84,000 people received in the months of March and April alone).

In his opinion, the 28,000 people who have arrived on the coast since August “is not a bigger challenge than those that have been faced in previous years” and, he said, ” they will not have a major impact on education or health (.. .), because of the profile of those who have arrived in recent weeks.”

The reasons for the increase in arrivals are two important: the conflict and more politics in Senegal and the long period of good state of the sea, the minister explained .

The increase in arrivals in recent weeks has some differences from other levels, such as the increase in minors, the concentration of arrivals in El Hierro and more of sub-Saharans.

The number of immigrants arriving in the Canary Islands is around 30,000

In 2023, the arrival of immigrants to the Canary Islands will be around 30,000 – half of them in October alone – and throughout the year they moved to the peninsula response, although Migrations does not show the number of changes because, as mentioned above. On Monday Escrivá, “they changed”, although the agreement with the government of the island is that the reception of the islands “will not exceed 6,000.”

To gradually release the emergency services opened in recent weeks, Migrations has announced that in November it will add 3,000 new places with the opening of three centers on Defense land in Madrid , Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) and Cartagena (Murcia). EF

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(Photo / Video)