Spain considers utilizing army barracks to deal with migrants amid uptick in arrivals by boat

MADRID — Spanish authorities are planning to transform unused army barracks and installations into short-term shelters for migrants to take care of the fast rise within the variety of individuals arriving on the Canary Islands by boat, a authorities minister stated Thursday.

José Luis Escrivá, minister of inclusion, social safety and migration, informed reporters that his ministry was working with army officers to guage the appropriateness of two barracks within the Madrid area and different installations within the southern cities of Seville and Cartagena.

“I imagine at this second we’ve got to be prepared in case (the shelters) are obligatory,” Escrivá stated.

Some 23,000 individuals have arrived on the Canary Islands by boat this 12 months, in comparison with 13,000 for a similar interval final 12 months, in response to Spain‘s inside ministry.

Many of the boats arrived at El Hierro island, which has acquired a number of thousand migrants in latest weeks.

The route to achieve the archipelago positioned off the northwest coast of Africa has claimed numerous lives, with migrants touring in small vessels unfit for lengthy journeys throughout the open sea.

Escrivá stated that some 5,000 individuals who arrived on the Canary Islands have been transferred in latest weeks to the mainland to take stress off social providers on the archipelago.

The uptick in arrivals, which has additionally been seen in Italy within the Mediterranean, has led to criticism of Spain’s central authorities by the right-wing opposition.

However Escrivá insisted that officers can deal with the inflow of individuals, saying it was comparatively small in comparison with the variety of Ukrainians who reached Spain after fleeing the Russian invasion.

“Now we have numerous expertise with these conditions,” the minister stated. “Now we have built-in 200,000 Ukrainians. In comparison with that, that is comparatively small.”

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