Rise in child refugees fleeing to the Canary Islands
ALMOST 2600 unaccompanied child refugees from Africa arrived in dinghy boats on the shores of the autonomous Spanish territory of Canary Islands in 2020, CNN reported on Tuesday.
The US news broadcaster said this number was three times higher than in 2019.
Most of these children embark on the perilous journey with strangers with the aid of their parents. The parents pay for the boat and leave everything to chance. For them, it’s best to die trying. In some cases, parents have already made the journey to Europe and later send money for their children to follow them, entrusting their lives to strangers.
The most sought-after destinations are Spain, France and Italy.
AP news agency quoted the EU and the Spanish government as saying that there has been a drop in illegal entry via boats in Europe. However, the Canary Islands route has seen a significant rise in refugees, with some 22600 arriving and making Spain the main point of entry.
The news agency said at least 600 people died or disappeared trying to make the precarious journey. This year alone, six people have died, including a boy who drowned.
According to CNN, in Spain, children between the ages of 6 and 12 are eligible for the local government's fostering scheme. Those younger than 6 are eligible for adoption, but only when it is confirmed that they do not have any family members in the EU or any documentation.
The government also tries to reunite refugee children with their biological families where possible.
The broadcaster said many children are too old to take part in the scheme. Most minors who arrive are boys aged around 15 or 16. They are sent to centres for child refugees and are taught Spanish and other professional skills to help them integrate into society.
However, there has been a sharp increase in children who need to be accommodated, forcing the government to seek help from the private sector to open new centres.
A 15-year-old boy who has been housed at one of the centres since November told CNN that he had travelled with a group of refugees, spending more than a week on a fishing boat with little food or water.
"I felt awful on the journey. It was eight days by sea without sleeping or eating well. But now I am happy here. I have been in Spain for three months now and I don’t want to leave. I see myself building a life here, finding a job and having a family,’’ he told CNN.
A migration report by the UN said that in many African countries, men between the ages of 18 and 40 head to North Africa every year to board boats to cross the Mediterranean into Europe.
The humanitarian agency said that even to reach North Africa, the refugees travel for days under harsh desert weather conditions, suffering abuse from criminal networks while parting with huge sums of money for the journey. Some get stranded in transit countries, forcing some to return to their countries of origin.
One refugee from Sierra Leone told UN workers in Niger how their driver abandoned them in the desert for days until they had to turn back. An amputee since he was young, he had not had an easy life and he had hoped to educate his boys, 9 and 18, in Italy so they could have a better future.
A resident of Dakhla, Western Sahara, who organises trips for refugees, said economic hardship drove him to work for a smuggling network.