ARCHIVED - Location of new €3.8 million immigrant centre in Cartagena unanimously condemned

Work has begun on a new immigrant centre in Cartagena to replace existing temporary structures, however, this will not be a permanent building either.

The €3.8 million temporary care centre for foreigners (CATE) being built between the Muelle del Carbón and the Espalmador beach, will apparently NOT be the permanent location.

Although Cartagena council and all those involved in dealing with the increased numbers of irregular migrants entering Spain via Murcian waters have got what they have been demanding for months - the construction of a dedicated centre in which the migrants can be received, the site chosen is proving equally controversial.

The new facility will replace the provisional camp opened a year ago in the port of Escombreras, and the national Government has begun building a new centre on the military land between the Muelle del Carbón and the beach of Espalmador, behind the Navantia dockyard and alongside the road leading down to the Fuerte de Navidad and Navidad lighthouse, but is already facing unanimous political rejection of the site by the Cartagena authorities and opposition parties.

The whole situation is, to put it mildly, complicated.

Murcia has never historically been a major destination for illegal migrants from the African coastline, as the major routes ran in either through the Strait of Gibraltar and out along the Andalucía coast or to the Canary Islands, with only a limited number of migrants crossing the wider stretch of sea to Murcia and Alicante.

But all this has changed since criminal gangs have set up organised routes bringing Algerian and Moroccan illegal immigrants into Spain in larger numbers, charging up to 2,500 euros a head for their ‘services’.

Murcia is a particular target for Algerians, who use high-speed motor launches to make the crossing, often sending several boats at a time to minimise the chances of interception as any migrants detained are sent to a migrant transit camp for deportation. Not all are deported, and many are released, as prosecutors fail to prove definitively where they have come from, but these migrants are not allowed to work legally in Spain, so many end up being exploited in poorly paid illegal jobs, living in ramshackle shanty camps or continuing their journey into other European countries where they have family contacts; some even end up on boats trying to cross the Channel into the UK.

The problem for Murcia has been the growing number of migrants and lack of facilities in which to temporarily  house them while the initial medical checks are done and PCR tests taken; and then in which to quarantine those who test positive or arrived in the same boat as someone who has tested positive.

The region does have a migrant transit centre in Santomera, but this is inadequate for the volume of migrants arriving in the last year and the imediate problem is the first 72 hour period after arrival.

The Cruz Roja erected a number of tents inside the port installations, but these facilities were very basic and there were many problems temporarily housing the migrants in this location, one of the principal issues being that the migrants had no intention of staying in the camps and there were several escapes, not only from the port but even from the hospitals in which the covid positives were sent for treatment; in one case a migrant tied together bed sheets and climbed out of a fourth floor window before disappearing off into Cartagena.

The solution which has been demanded ever since the numbers of migrants increased was to build a CATE centre in Cartagena, but this location is already proving controversial.

Some have questioned the wisdom of positioning the camp right next to the Navantia shipping yards which are currently building S-80 submarines for the Navy, and also alongside an active military base, although this location was chosen in preference to the original proposed site closer to the Escombreras industrial area which was also felt to be a security risk as this is the area in which the petrol refineries are currently operating.

However, despite potential security issues with the eventual location of the CATE, the immediate problem to have arisen from the construction of the new 3.82 million centre, is that it clashes with a project already in the pipeline  between the Cartagena City Council and the Port Authority.

The council has been working for years to persuade the military to cede the land behind Navantia to the Port Authority as the area is quite frankly, a mess, with piles of rubble and abandoned military structures which are not maintained. This finally happened in March this year, with the agreed price being 25.4 million euros and the 78,660 square meters became the focal point of a plan to create a more attarctive tourist and active leisure route leading from the city out to the fort.

And the new CATE centre, is not intended to be visually attractive, surrounded by a high concrete wall which will do nothing to enhance the project.

Although a spokesman for the Government Delegation stressed the "provisional" nature of the CATE under construction, the process to complete the whole operation could take several years and this has not gone down well with the Mayoress of Cartagena, Noelia Arroyo.

“I do not agree with its location, nor have I chosen it, nor have I been asked. What is certain is that it harms the city but the Government Delegate [José Vélez] assures me that the Town Hall has no power to stop an operation on state-owned land as it is declared to be in the public interest,” Arroyo said.

Indeed plans to build the CATE, which will open its doors in about six months, have been declared to be "in the public interest" by the government in order to speed up construction, so they do not depend on receiving local licences from Cartagena city council.

Arroyo for her part insisted that Vélez move the CATE to a place where it would not interfere with town hall plans to restore the Espalmador as an urban recreation area, to tidy up the beach and make it a more accessible place for tourists to visit.

"The commitment is to move the CATE to a place where the people of Cartagena will not notice its presence. We understand that all facilities of this type are on port-owned land and that Escombreras, for security reasons, is not the right place. But by building it in Espalmador, it clashes with the city project on which the Port and the City Council have been working for many months", said the Mayoress.

For a change, the main opposition party, MC, agrees with the PP Mayoress that the location of the "provisional" CATE is not good for Cartagena, commenting that "the rejection of the Cartagena people to the location of the CATE in the Espalmador area is almost unanimous."

MC Cartagena’s José López Martínez has called for the situation to be debated by the council, but his main worry is whether the location chosen for the expensive new "provisional" CATE will actually be provisional, stating “the provisional almost always ends up being definitive in Cartagena".

He is also concerned that the proposed "final" location for the CATE is just a stone's throw from the projected "permanent" location, and the "temporary and the definitive locations are only separated by a fence.”

Image: MC Cartagena