The Civil Guard acknowledges in a report its shortcomings in the maintenance and repair of the vessels with which it controls irregular immigration to the Canary Islands, on the Atlantic route, the main entry route for cayucos and other vessels throughout the last year.
The document that EL ESPAÑOL has accessed is prepared by the Command of the Border and Maritime Police of the Armed Institute, dependent on the Ministry of the Interior. It admits the deficiencies of the vessels used to control the boats, as well as “insufficient means” in the Corps to meet these needs.
The file is part of a call for tenders from the Interior in which the requirement to “execute a new emergency file to cover the aforementioned services, for a period from August 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024expected entry of the file to be processed”.
The Civil Guard Maritime Service currently has three ships that make up its ocean fleet. These “are essential to be able to carry out the functions of the Corps in the different maritime areas where it operates,” the report explains.
“Both the management of the ships and their periodic maintenance are necessary to guarantee their operation,” he continues. But now, the Civil Guard “it does not have the necessary staff to ensure the entirety of this management and maintenance.” The Armed Institute is therefore obliged to subcontract this service externally.
The ships are continually subjected to periods of intense navigation which affect their conditions. Now, with the increase in the arrival of immigrants by sea, they also carry out operations abroad.
“On the occasion of international operations for prevent irregular immigration that the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard is developing in the waters off the coast of the African continent, and in particular in the jurisdictional waters of Mauritania and Senegal, work may be necessary corrective maintenance in said countries,” the document states.
Thus, Interior launched a tender worth 31 million euros. In this contract, the Civil Guard recognizes the inadequacy of the means available to the body to maintain the fleet.
Figures never seen before
The needs of the Civil Guard in immigration matters have increased in recent months. The crisis of boats and cayucos bound for the Canary Islands has worsened in a month of August of real “emergency”, especially in Ceuta and the archipelago.
The arrival of irregular immigrants to the autonomous city via the land border with Morocco has tripled compared to 2023 data. In the Canary Islands, the data is also spectacular: the 123.1% increase compared to last year: they have already arrived on its shores 25,524 peoplemore than 200 per day over the last two weeks.
The Interior Ministry document, updated on August 31, said the cumulative number of land entries into the autonomous North African city in 2023 at this point in the summer was 650 people. During the same period of the 2024 financial year, Ceuta was overwhelmed by a total of 1,917 immigrant arrivals.
The seriousness of the “humanitarian emergency” led this Monday to Fernando ClavijoPresident of the Canary Islands, to propose to his Government Council to take the Executive of Pedro Sanchez before the courts “for abandonment of functions”. His continuous calls for help led the president to receive him in La Palma, 10 days ago, at the end of his holidays in Lanzarote. But the crisis has only gotten worse.
Among them, more than 25,500 migrants undocumented arrived on the shores of the islands, more than 5,300 are minors unaccompanied persons (menas), whose care is the responsibility of the Autonomous Community. For this reason, and given the “overcrowding” of the centres (which increased from 33 to 81 last year), last July a political crisis broke out.
