“You can die at any time” – migration crisis in the Canary Islands

“You can die at any time” – because of Corona, the Canaries have become a refugee hotspot

Due to the Corona crisis, the refugee situation has worsened: many have lost their jobs and are stuck in rescue centers.

The devastated Moria, migrants in difficulty off the coast of Italy or on the border river between Turkey and Greece: images like these shape the reportage on the fate of migrants. But some 4,000 kilometers away from the burnt-out refugee camp of Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos, a new crisis is brewing in the Atlantic. Since the beginning of the year, nearly 14,000 migrants have reached the Canary Islands, which belong to Spain, off the west coast of Africa. According to the Spanish Interior Ministry, it was nearly seven times higher than in the same period last year.

The archipelago should not become a Lampedusa of Spain, the deputy prime minister of the Canary Islands, Roman Rodríguez recently warned. With 2.15 million inhabitants, the Canaries are much larger than Lampedusa, where only 4500 people live. But the number of arriving migrants is similar. More than 2,200 people arrived from Saturday to Monday morning alone. Since January 16 thousand people have arrived by boat on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.

The crossing from Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the most dangerous of all. People start in Morocco, Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau or even Guinea, some 2,400 kilometers away. Most open wooden boats are powered only by an outboard motor and can hardly do anything to thwart the stormy seas of the Atlantic. According to information from the United Nations Organization for Migration (IOM), at least 414 people have died this year, twice as many as last year.

“You can die at any moment,” says Papa Diop Sarr, a fisherman in Senegal who wants to start over after a failed attempt. Having to leave the whole family behind is an incentive to strive for a better life in Europe. “But we leave without knowing what opportunities or difficulties we will find”.

The true scale of the tragedies at sea is likely to be worse than known. “Due to the very low success rate, only a few people make it to the Canary Islands,” writes IOM. How many people start the journey in West Africa – and how many don’t make it alive – is not known. The Spanish media reported on a 17-year-old Moroccan. He said of the 26 people aboard his boat, 16 died of thirst during the odyssey across the Atlantic. He and the others were supposed to throw them overboard, including six of his cousins.

“One of the concerns is the risk of dying,” said Nassima Clerin, a migrant protection expert at IOM in Senegal. “But there are also concerns and fears about what will happen to the people who make it and get there.” In the Canary Islands, the situation in the port city of Arguineguín, in the southwest of Gran Canaria, is the most difficult. Last weekend, more than 2,000 newcomers crowded the dock, camped out in the open air and slept on concrete, the sanitation was very bad.

Migrants should actually be registered there within 72 hours and tested for corona virus. But the authorities are overwhelmed and displeasure among the population grows. There are already demonstrations against an alleged “invasion”, complaining that the state is doing too much for migrants and too little for locals affected by the crown pandemic. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska announced during a visit by European Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson that the reception center in the port would be closed and moved to barracks.

But what is driving more and more people to risk their lives? Experts believe it has to do with changing migration routes, among other things, also due to the closure of the borders linked to the crown. All Sahelian countries closed during the pandemic, says Matt Herbert of the think tank Institute for Security Studies. The closures in Algeria have been particularly long and effective. The route from Niger or Mali to Algeria was difficult to use. In Morocco, the authorities have also taken more decisive action against migration in cooperation with the EU, explains Bram Frouws of the Mixed Migration Center.

The pandemic has made it more difficult for many migrants to travel, but it has also increased the condition of people and the desire to emigrate. Because the Corona crisis has deprived many of their livelihoods. The African Development Bank predicted in July that 25 million Africans could lose their jobs this year. In Senegal, for example, which is heavily dependent on tourism, economic growth will drop from 5.3% in 2019 to 1.3% this year, according to the World Bank.

The Senegalese Gala Sow is one of the many who suffer from it. The young man ran a small business in the port city of Saint Louis in the north of the West African country, as he told the newspaper El País. There he sold bracelets, necklaces, shoes and clothes and held courses on the Yembé drum on the side. During the tourist season he managed to earn the equivalent of up to 4500 euros. But overnight it was all over.

Due to the pandemic, a curfew was imposed and tourists stayed away. Sow could no longer support his mother and siblings, sold a piece of land, grabbed his younger brother and boarded a fishing boat to the Canary Islands with 66 other people. “Everyone who worked in tourism, hotels, tour guides and merchants lost their livelihoods,” the man told the newspaper shortly after arriving in Tenerife. If he is lucky, he will be allowed to stay and may even reach mainland Spain. If not, it could end up on one of the deportation flights to Mauritania, resumed Tuesday after a hiatus since March.

Most migrants arriving in the Canary Islands hope, according to IOM expert Clerin, to come to mainland Spain or even to travel to other European countries. But due to the situation in Corona, it is currently difficult to reach the mainland, many migrants remained in the Canary Islands. “You’re practically stuck there.” (cki / sda / dpa)