Outraged leaders of Spanish holiday islands say 'we can't cope with illegal migrants'

Spain's holiday islands are starting to rebel against the constant arrival of illegal migrants in tiny boats, saying they can no longer cope.

Government leaders in the Balearics, which include Mallorca, Ibiza and Formentera, and the Canary Islands with the popular British haunts of Tenerife, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria, say they are at their "wits' end" and need desperate help.

The small boats with African migrants are arriving virtually every day in some locations and there are mounting tensions between them and locals in holiday resorts.

The south coast of Majorca has also become a "graveyard" of abandoned boats amidst an ongoing dispute over who should get rid of them.

Workers in the nautical sector say beaches are littered with wrecks.

"Majorca cannot continue to ignore this double tragedy - human and environmental - that is taking place in silence in one of its most fragile and protected areas," they say.

President of the Balearic government, Marga Prohens said the situation of illegal immigration in the Balearic Islands was "alarming", with the arrival this year of more than 4,700 people in small boats, mainly from Algeria, of which 1,500 correspond to the month of August alone.

"The situation is getting worse every day and has no sign of a solution," she said. "The Government of Spain has a serious problem when it is not able to protect its own borders."

Spain has recently dictated that the islands must accept some migrant children rather than sending them back by Marga Prohens said the holding camps were bursting and more than 1,000 per cent over capacity.

She is asking the Spanish government to suspend its ruling as a precautionary measure and will launch an appeal in the Supreme Court.

"We will resort to all the means at our disposal to avoid the imposition of this distribution that we cannot assume in conditions of dignity and humanity," she said.

The Balearic president and those of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera met yesterdat to establish a "legal strategy" in the face of the Government's decision to distribute unaccompanied minors from the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla. In total, the Balearic Islands have been assigned 49.

The Spanish Government plans to approve next Tuesday the resolution to proceed with this distribution from August 28th.

The Balearic government and the councils will insist on asking the government to "strengthen the fight against the mafias that traffic immigrants" and increase the staff of the State Security Forces and Corps on the islands, where there are currently 600 vacancies, according to the unions.

They also demand that Spain recover "the diplomatic route" with Algeria to control illegal migratory flows, because it is the migratory route that "grows the most" in all of Europe/

The archipelago, the president has alleged, is becoming "the main gateway" for irregular immigration into the European Union.

Marga Prohens has read an excerpt from a Frontex report that warns of the danger of "people with potentially malicious intentions" entering the EU in boats that reach the Balearic coast and "possibly becoming involved in criminal activities".

Ibiza and Formentera also say they cannot "face a crisis of this magnitude alone".

"As much as we ask for help, we are alone looking for spaces, hiring services and allocating about three million euros to deal with this situation," said Ibiza's president, Vicent Marí. "This constant increase in the pressure on care translates into a burnout of technical and educational teams."

Formentera's president Óscar Portas said each migrant child they were looking after at the moment cost them between 200 and 300 euros a day. In one week alone, they had to accept 20 more minors.

Beyond the humanitarian drama, he said the crisis also has environmental consequences: at the moment, there are 19 boats spread along the Formentera coast and another 97 in the waste treatment area of Cap de Barbaria.

The Canary Islands are also demanding more resources "to prevent thousands of people from risking their lives at sea and many even ending up losing it."

The regional executive is asking for strengthening of human and material resources - maritime, air and more equipment - in the archipelago, improve coordination with Maritime Rescue in humanitarian management and ensure that Frontex operatives receive training adapted to the migratory reality of each region.

The Canary Islands remain the main gateway to Spain. So far this year, 11,883 migrants have arrived on the coasts of the archipelago. Likewise, while the Balearic Islands welcome 680 migrant children, the Canary Islands archipelago protects more than 5,600.

Director General of Child and Family Protection in the Canaries, Sandra Rodríguez said a national emergency should be declared.

Despite the decrease in the number of arrivals experienced in recent months, the Canary Islands remain cautious about what may happen at the end of the summer. The president of the regional executive, Fernando Clavijo, said this week that, with the improvements in weather conditions, an increase is likely. In fact, according to Frontex's annual risk report, migratory pressure on the islands is expected to remain high this year due to factors such as "environmental pressures, conflicts" or geopolitical changes in the Sahel.