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ARCHIVED - Organised assault by migrant mafias on Murcia, Almería and Alicante
Hundreds of migrants arrived within 24 hours, overwhelming police and rescue resources
What can only be described as a highly organised mass assault on the coastlines of Murcia and Almería took place on Friday, with hundreds of illegal migrants arriving in dozens of boats, totally overwhelming police and rescue resources, exactly as planned by the mafias who are undoubtedly behind the co-ordinated launch of dozens of small boats and made tens of thousands of euros of profit yesterday when their “clients” successfully reached the Spanish mainland.
On Saturday the assault continued, six pateras reaching the coastline of Alicante in the early hours of the morning; Benidorm, Calpe, Santa Pola, Teulada Moraira and la Vila Joiosa with around 70 people on board.
Police admit to being “overwhelmed” and are experiencing a “chaotic” situation, lacking resources and the sufficient personnel and means to handle the volume of arrivals.
The union representing the Policia Nacional has denounced the “miserable conditions both the police attempting to maintain order and the migrants themselves are experiencing” and repeated calls for a temporary migrant handling centre in Cartagena rather than the collection of emergency tents available from the Cruz Roja.
Cartagena council has also denounced the chaos and lack of co-ordination, reiterating its repeated offers to assist the emergency services and national police in managing the situation.
418 irregular migrants in 31 boats have been accounted for in just the Murcia Region alone, and in neighbouring Almería the Guardia Civíl described the events of Friday as an "avalanche of boats", with 80 people reaching the coast in small boats, plus a further 102 rescued out at sea in Almería. Yet more are believed to have made it to land and disappeared without being detected and detained. The first boat was detected at 07:00 in Carboneras and the last at 18:10 in the evening.The Guardia report semi-rigid boats coming into the coast at high speed, dropping off their occupants and disappearing back out to sea.
Other boats reached the Canary Islands where there are already 100 migrants who have tested positive for Covid in quarantine.
The pateras started arriving early in the morning at different points along the Murcian coast, in Cabo de Palos in Cartagena, la Azohía, also in Cartagena, Portmán, Cabo Negrete……they just kept coming and during the afternoon beachgoers and boaters in Águilas were astonished to see launches coming into the beach at full speed and depositing boatloads of migrants onto the beach right in front of them.
The Guardía Civíl, Policia Nacional and Policia Local worked with volunteers from Protección Civíl to ensure that the migrants were kept away from those on the beaches and held together until transport could be organsied to move them to a central area in Cartagena port so that Covid tests could be undertaken on all of them.
The problem now exists that accommodation must be found to ensure that any which require quarantining can be quarantined in dignified conditions as long as necessary.
It has been reported that 2 have tested Covid positive already, but as no information has been released by the office of the Government Delegate and no formal statements have yet been made about the situation, that information cannot be verified.
At the moment, those in quarantine are being housed in the albergue in the regional park of El Valle close to Murcia City, but there is no doubt that these facilities will be inadequate and cannot cope with this volume of migrants, particularly not in the light of the current Covid situation. It has been suggested that perhaps the naval installations in Cartagena may be able to assist with the temporary secure housing of these migrants.
The principal reason behind this current situation has been the closure of the Moroccan and Algerian borders due to the Covid crisis.
The first stage of the border re-opening began on 14th July, but aims to permit Moroccan residents to return home to their country from abroad rather than to open borders for tourism; while the borders have been closed it has been impossible for Spain to repatriate migrants with expulsion orders.
The police have no jurisdiction to hold any migrants testing negative for Covid-19 beyond a 72 hour period as technically they have not committed a crime and once it is confirmed that they are not covid positive and are not required to quarantine, the police have no choice other than to release them; a gift for the mafias who organise transport to Spain in small pateras and attempt to evade the constant vigilance of the coastguard and marine rescue services who constantly patrol on both the sea and in the sky to prevent illegal migrants entering Spain by sea.
On the 7th/8th July a similar wave of boats reached the Murcian Region sparking off a major disagreement between the Murcian Regional Government and the Government Delegate to the Region who represents the national Government of Spain which has the responsibility for migrant expulsions and which would normally take charge of the new arrivals, but due to the lack of the CIE centre had nowhere in which they could be safely housed.
There were several escapes of Covid-positive migrants from hospitals in which positive patients were being treated, including one case in which a migrant climbed out of the hospital window from the fourth floor using his bedsheets as a rope and in another instance a group of migrants broke out of the temporary marquee in which they were waiting for the results of Covid-tests and disappeared off into Cartagena; only six of the 9 were detained.
There are very few reports ever of any sort of violence or intimidation towards the public, as many of the migrants who arrive in Spain are trying to get to France and on towards other destinations where there is the possibility of finding some sort of work. The principal fear at the moment is the spread of Covid, as this was the reason behind the closure of borders in Algeria and Morocco, hence the importance of detaining the migrants and ensuring that they are tested for Covid and quarantined.
If you do live in coastal areas where the pateras are arriving and see something suspicious, call 112. Do not attempt to approach or engage anyone encountered, simply call the police.
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