When Pedro Sánchez came to power in 2018, he saw immigration as an opportunity to strike a first blow that would differentiate him from the policies of his predecessor, Mariano Rajoy. He welcomed the ship “Aquarius” that had been stranded for days on the Italian coast without a port to dock in because no European country wanted to take it over. However, with the increase in arrivals of small boats to the Spanish coast, especially from 2018 onwards, he made a change that would mark his next measures: returning to immediate returns, express expulsions – including minors – or strengthening relations with Morocco at the expense of the Sahrawi people. None of the decisions he has taken has managed to stop irregular arrivals, which are at record levels.
The migratory drama in the Canary Islands is the new front that the Executive has opened, but not the only one. Other arrival points such as Ceuta and the Balearic Islands are also enduring unprecedented migratory pressure.
After meeting with the Canarian president, Fernando Clavijo, last Friday without offering a national response to the phenomenon or reaching out to the main opposition party, the Executive continues without a plan while resources are overwhelmed and the patience of the population in the affected areas is at its limit.
El Hierro can’t take it anymore. “What is happening on the island is a disaster. It seems incredible that this is happening in a sovereign country and a member of the European Union. Pedro Sánchez’s government is acting as if nothing is happening here.” The person who pronounces these words is Fernando Gutiérrez, spokesman for the Fishermen’s Association of the port of La Restinga. This quiet port that belongs to the municipality of El Pinar has been overwhelmed by the avalanche of arrivals of small boats to its facilities. This pier on the island of El Hierro has been the epicentre of illegal immigration for a few months now, as were once Arguineguín in Gran Canaria or Lampedusa in Italy. It doesn’t matter that to reach this small Canary Island of 268.7 square kilometres and 11,000 inhabitants, who board a barge mainly from neighbouring Senegal, Gambia or Guinea Bissau, you have to risk your life to travel more than 1,700 kilometres and reach this territory, which is the furthest from Africa. This flood of arrivals is influencing the lives of locals.
“Where are we, the Spanish?” he asks. “They are going to build a reception centre and here we have been demanding a nursing home for years, but there is no way of getting one,” he says after explaining that the health centres are completely saturated and there are no appointments for medical tests. Visibly angry, he insists that the arrival of the boats is becoming “a real invasion” without the government doing anything. “Why has Sánchez met in La Palma instead of El Hierro? Does he not want to see what is happening here?” he asks. The local population is one of those affected by this phenomenon that is putting the capacities of this peaceful island on the ropes until a year ago.
Onalia Bueno, the mayor of Mogán, knows this very well, and recalls the deterioration of public services during the previous wave of migration in the midst of the pandemic. “The current situation is nothing like the one we experienced in 2020. After the crisis in El Hierro, we have finally managed to get the State to take on the withdrawal of the cayucos within 72 hours,” she says. However, arrivals continue to be continuous. Not in vain, whenever a migration route is closed, another opens. The pressure that the Port of Arguineguín once endured has been transferred to El Hierro, where its inhabitants urge the government not to look the other way.