CARTAGENA, Spain — Not far from the lush green golf courses in southeastern Spain popular with British tourists, Cartagena is hosting visitors from a very different place: West Africa.
Last year, as a record number of migrants arrived in the Canary Islands by small boats, the Spanish government set up four camps around the mainland, including one in Cartagena, to ease pressure on the Spanish islands.
A former military hospital on the outskirts of the military port is housing at least 600 migrants, but others have had to be put in hotels because they were overcrowded.
Reactions have been mixed, with conservative mayors objecting to Spain’s left-wing government running the makeshift camps and residents saying migrants must find shelter.
What’s happening in Cartagena is symptomatic of struggles across Spain as the country tries to cope with record arrivals, but Spaniards are getting mixed reactions.
Some 13,485 West African migrants arrived in Spain by sea in the first two months of 2024, compared with 2,948 in the same period last year, an increase of 357.4%. The vast majority of people land in the Canary Islands from countries such as Senegal, Morocco and Mauritania.
On Tuesday, the Spanish coast guard discovered the bodies of four migrants on a fragile boat with 64 others aboard as they sailed off El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands.
Cartagena is a historic military port in the Murcia region where many British holidaymakers come to enjoy golf holidays on the course, and when the boats arrive at the beach, most have little idea of the immigration issues happening nearby.
Cartagena’s conservative mayor, Noelia Arroyo, said the city of 200,000 residents had seen migrants arriving by boat.
“Given the direct influx of migrants to the coast of Cartagena and the inability of the government to manage it, I think it would be a mistake to set up migrant camps here to accommodate migrants arriving in other parts of Spain,” she told Reuters. I.
“For Europe’s fourth largest economy, I think it is inappropriate to respond to the arrival of migrants with refugee camps. Providing humanitarian reception is not enough.”
However, Mercedes Goméz, 28, who works in a hotel in the city, said she believed the city, like others in Spain, should do what it can to help migrants.
“I think the reality is these people came to Spain to have a better life. They were housed in an abandoned hospital. I don’t think they bothered anyone,” she told I.
Nuria Díaz, national spokesperson for the NGO Spanish Refugee Council (CEAR), said Spain has been a very welcoming society during times of crisis for immigrants from Syria, Ukraine and Africa.
“But we are concerned that in some institutions [in Europe] She said in the interview that racist comments fueled hatred against immigrants. I.
In 2020, Ousmane Sow spent five days traveling hundreds of miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Senegal to the Canary Islands in a fragile boat with 129 other people.
Four years later, at the age of 25, Mr. Sou found a job at a timber company near Madrid. He sent money back to his family in The Gambia but wanted to build his future in Spain.
“I have a problem [racism] From some idiots, but there are idiots in my country too.Most people are friendly,” he told I.
Catalan authorities are facing similar problems, with a record 664 unaccompanied minor migrants arriving in the region this year, 60% of whom came from the Canary Islands.
Oriol Amorós, secretary-general of the Catalan regional government’s social affairs ministry, said that if the number of child migrant arrivals continues to grow at this rate, about 4,000 minors will need to be resettled this year.
Amoros says many local councils are reluctant for the Catalan government to open immigration centers in their areas vanguard.
Spanish Immigration Minister Elma Saez dismissed claims that people are choosing to come to Spain in record numbers because of a perceived softness of the left-wing government.
“There are people jumping into the sea and putting their lives in danger, and it’s not because of Pedro Sánchez’s rule,” she told La Sexta TV channel last week.
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