The Canarian president, Fernando Clavijoaccuses the government of attacking the Canary Islands “after months without news or answers” in the face of the migratory pressure suffered by the archipelago, after the warnings that both the central executive like the Prosecutor’s Officemade to the Canary Islands administration following its new protocol on unaccompanied migrant minors.
Clavijo criticized the state for not implementing this protocol “to be able to care for and guarantee the safety of these minors,” despite its powers over immigration, borders and maritime rescue. “Our position is to serve them and ask the Spanish government help us because we can’t take it anymore“because we do not have the capacity to accommodate them and the overcrowded conditions do not allow us to guarantee the safety of the minor,” said the regional president.
The leader of the Canary Islands Coalition stressed that the archipelago houses and protects “nearly 70% of minors” unaccompanied foreigners from all over Spain.” If we make the equivalence, he illustrated, “it is as if 130,000 minors had arrived in Spain and we, the Canarians, endure all this alone.” A region, he added, which, with these children, are the “victims” of this humanitarian emergency.
“Given what is happening, what we have done is to apply the protocol that the Government was not applying to take care of and guarantee the safety of minors. The Government must understand that He must take responsibility and help, not attack the Canary Islandsin a humanitarian crisis like this,” he stressed.
For the Canary Islands president, it is “absolutely indecent” that “all of a sudden, four ministers meet and propose to take this protocol to the Constitutional Court to attack the Canary Islands. We have been asking for help for months and it has not been granted.“.
Clavijo defended that “the only thing that” Canarias “requests is that when a minor is handed over to them, he or she is examined, registered in the registry of unaccompanied minors, with a photo to be able to recognize them, because a list of names is not enough.”
“Perhaps what the State does not like is being warned that we have exceeded the resourcesthat they are overcrowded“, he said. “Taking care of a minor is not parking them in a tent, it is teaching them the language, educating them, giving them psychological help, training them and integrating them, and that requires resources and at the moment we are totally overwhelmed in the Canary Islands,” he denounced.
Fernando Clavijo also mentioned the Possible visit of the Pope to the Canary Islandsin response to which he expressed “his joy and gratitude”, while recalling that when he received last January the delegation of the regional government that he presides “he already showed his empathy” with the citizens of the archipelago and their “exemplary behavior” in this humanitarian crisis.
“Even he sees that the pressure that we Canarians are subjected to is absolutely disproportionate and, far from receiving help, complicity or collaboration, it seems that because we are asking that the minor be released now with legal guarantees The Spanish government is dedicated to attacking the Canary Islandsnot helping him or helping the minors, not providing resources, not meeting to understand each other,” he said.
