La Laguna camp will receive migrants from hotels in Gran Canaria

The spokesman for the Canary Islands Government, Julio Pérez, has announced that next week the first transfers of migrants will take place to the camp that has been set up in the Las Raices barracks, in La Laguna in the north of Tenerife, confirmed by the central Executive. 

At the press conference after the Governing Council meeting yesterday, Pérez explained that most of these people will be transferred from tourist complexes in Gran Canaria to Tenerife, as well as some from other parts of Tenerife itself, to the facility that they have been preparing for several weeks, that has a capacity for 2,000 people.

Pérez stressed that the Las Raices camp, and another that is being set up in a different barracks in La Laguna, Las Canteras (which will open later in the month) "improve" the reception process that takes place in the Islands, but he immediately recognized afterwards that "it is not an adequate or sufficient solution", and much less "definitive", which is why the regional Government continues to demand that transferrals to the mainland and repatriations be increased.

The Las Raíces and Las Canteras barracks will house immigrants for one year from their opening. This was pointed out yesterday by the mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez. The data that the La Laguna Town Council has received is that the Las Raices installation, whose works are nearing completion, is the first to go into operation and that it will begin to receive immigrants next week.

"In the next few days they will inform us of the measures that they are going to carry out to have Las Canteras 100% enabled, evidently with a much lower number of places available than Las Raices," he said, and specified that Las Raices will host more people than Las Canteras, a capacity that with respect to the second barracks is "yet to be determined." 

"We have been told that these spaces will not be in operation for more than a year, and that is very important to us," said the local councillor. He stressed that the residents around both barracks will be informed of steps that are being taken. "We are facing an unprecedented social crisis and a situation that requires the solidarity of a municipality like this.”

"These spaces are temporary," reiterated the mayor.  "We have made every effort to be communicated to us at all times and keep us informed, and this has been done;  we are satisfied because all those requests that we have made to the governments of the Canary Islands and the state have been fulfilled", he concluded.