MADRID, 10 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Starting this Friday, the Arteaga General Headquarters in Carabanchel (Madrid) welcomes the first 170 migrants of the 1,220 who will be able to stay there, at most, in the coming days.
Thus, the Emergency, Reception and Referral Center of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration has launched the first phase with 420 places. As reported, the Spanish Red Cross is the entity that will be in charge of managing this new resource, which has come into operation “without any type of incident.”
Three other new centers will be added to this device in the coming weeks. Firstly, the Naval Hospital of Cartagena (Murcia) will be available at the end of next week, while the Primo de Rivera barracks in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) will open the following week. These, in addition to the own resource opened in Mérida in the shelter provided by the town’s City Council, will allow increasing the capacity of the reception system by more than 3,700 places and gradually releasing, depending on arrivals, those opened in other resources used for temporarily in recent weeks to address the peak in arrivals to the coast that has occurred.
Furthermore, as indicated by the ministry, before the center opened, those responsible for the Secretary of State
of Migrations met last Tuesday with the Madrid City Council to explain in detail the operation of this resource. Throughout the morning of this Friday, they also met with those responsible for the town councils of Cartagena and Alcalá de Henares to provide detailed information on the resources that will be opened on the disused military lands of both cities.
According to the balance of the Ministry of the Interior as of October 31, 2023, in total, 44,404 migrants have arrived in Spain irregularly so far this year, which represents an increase of 57.5% (16,208 more) compared to the same period last year.
In the Canary Islands, until that day there were 30,705 migrants who had arrived to the islands, which was 111.2% more than the same figure from the previous year. However, arrivals to the Canary archipelago already exceed the number of the cayucos crisis, in 2006, when a total of 31,678 people arrived in the Canary Islands irregularly, since to date it has recorded more than 32,200 arrivals.
