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While adult migrants end up leaving the islands for mainland Spain and other parts of Europe following their arrival, unaccompanied minors are the responsibility of the regional government
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the Canary Islands to meet with regional President Fernando Clavijo as the archipelago continues to face a high number of migrant arrivals and struggles including unaccompanied minors.
Sánchez’s minister for territorial policy and democratic memory Ángel Victor Torres, who is also the former regional president of the Canaries, spoke after the meeting on behalf of Sánchez’s government. He said the discussions were fruitful and announced 50 million euros to the archipelago, extra financial help that had been given in previous years.
While adult migrants end up leaving the islands for mainland Spain and other parts of Europe following their arrival, unaccompanied minors are the responsibility of the regional government.
The Canary Islands says it currently is caring for more than 5,000 children and teenage migrants who reached the archipelago on their own, or who lost parents during the dangerous journey from the West African coast. Torres said that Sánchez and Clavijo vowed to keep working on longer-term solutions to the issue of irregular migration, especially the topic of underage migrants travelling alone.
The solution, modifying the law to make solidarity among different Spanish regions mandatory, he said, had to go through parliament. But an attempt at doing so in late July failed, with lawmakers refusing to even consider a proposal that would have forced other regions of Spain to take in some of the unaccompanied minors stuck in the Canary Islands.
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Sánche’s visit to the archipelago, which is geographically closer to northwest Africa than mainland Spain, comes a few days before he travels to Mauritania, Senegal, and the Gambia. These are the main countries of migrant departures. Sanche will be discussing the migrant issues with the top leadership of these countries.
