Spain accused of driving migrants north to shift the burden to France
in Irún, Spain SPANISH authorities have been accused of pushing migrants further north through Europe as the row over new arrivals – and which countries should take responsibility for them – rumbles on.
Frederic had never planned to journey to France. His gruelling three-year odyssey from the Ivory Coast had always had Spain as its final destination, to make a better life.
Yet, two months after he landed in the southern port of Algeciras, plucked from the sea by the coastguard, he finds himself more than 600 miles to the north in Irún, a rainy Basque Country town on the French border.
He is far from alone: NGOs working in Irún say hundreds of migrants have arrived in the past month alone, drawn by the relative ease of the border crossing. While some make their way to the north independently, most arrive on buses sent by the Spanish Red Cross – which oversees the reception of migrants – to Bilbao or San Sebastian, from where it is just a short ride on local transport to the border town.
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph in a shelter recently opened by concerned Irún residents, Frederic says that after his arrival in Algeciras, he was shunted up through the country from place to place, finding in each that nothing awaited him but a transfer to the next.
The 23-year-old – who asked that his name be changed to protect his identity – tells a story that reflects increasing reports from around the country. Authorities put him and others on a bus to Malaga and said they would be met there. “But there was no one,” Frederic says.
The group made their way to a Red Cross centre but it was full, so, after being given some food, when workers asked, “Who wants to go to Barcelona?” he was one of many to raise their hands.
Deposited at the city’s station, he again found no beds at the local Red Cross centre. So a similar question came: “Who wants to go to Bilbao?”
“I wanted to stay there,” Frederic continues, explaining that he had heard good things of Barcelona and had contacts there. “But they said there was no place. They gave us €80 each so that we would go to Bilbao.”
But again, there was no one to meet them at the station, where he and his fellow passengers were forced to sleep. “There was nowhere to go. I hadn’t thought of going to France, but then the border was so close,” Frederic explains. Taking a bus to Irún, he attempted to cross the frontier the next day. Crossing the border is easy in Irún, separated only from its French neighbour, Hendaye, by a couple of road bridges across a narrow river with no fixed controls. However, under an agreement by local authorities, those intercepted by French police within four hours can be returned to Spain, and Frederic was one of them.
The numbers in the north pale in comparison to the southern coast, where more than 27,000 people have landed this year – almost 5,000 in the first three weeks of August alone – making Spain the busiest gateway for those crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. Arrivals surged dramatically with the start of summer, coinciding with the decision of the new Italian government to shut its ports to rescue boats, and overwhelming reception operations in Andalusia.
But increasingly, too, NGOs and authorities in northern towns and cities are complaining about the buses sent up through Spain, often they say without official notice or provisions, by a system they claim is primarily concerned with simply moving people on.
Mayors in Irún, the nearby Basque cities of Bilbao and San Sebastian and in Barcelona have all raised concerns.
French police are now stepping up checks, putting further pressure on Irún. In July, the Red Cross hastily opened a shelter for transiting migrants in a school, but it will close on Sept 1. The Sunday Telegraph spoke to NGOs and local authorities in the Basque Country and Barcelona who suggested there was an institutional attitude of pushing migrants onwards – and ultimately out of Spain.
Ignasi Calbó, head of the Barcelona government’s City of Refuge initiative, claimed the Spanish government and the Red Cross “try to make people continue towards the north” and had “no interest in people staying, evidently”.
The approach appears at odds with the Spanish government’s public welcomes for migrants. Spain also has agreements with France and Germany to take back migrants who make their way to those countries.
José Javier Sánchez Espinosa, migration director for the Spanish Red Cross, acknowledged isolated cases of disorganisation surrounding bus transfers, but insisted this was due to being “completely overwhelmed” by arrivals.
A spokesman for the Spanish interior ministry insisted Spain was primarily a “transit country”, and could not restrict the movement of those intent on travelling on.