MADRID (Reuters) – Several hundred migrants searching for asylum are in limbo at Madrid airport, sleeping in crammed areas with poor situations, Spanish rights teams mentioned, describing the scenario as “unsustainable”.
Spain’s Commission for Assistance to Refugees (CEAR) advised Reuters on Monday the variety of individuals requesting worldwide safety upon touchdown at Madrid’s worldwide airport, Barajas, has been rising since final summer time.
“In December, the scenario grew to become unsustainable,” mentioned CEAR spokesperson Elena Munoz. “People sleep on mattresses on the ground, typically a number of per mattress… There are mattress bugs and cockroaches.”
There had been as much as 400 individuals caught on the airport final week, and “increasingly arrive every single day”, in response to Munoz, who couldn’t present a exact quantity as of this week.
A Spanish inside ministry spokesperson wouldn’t give any estimates both, saying the variety of migrants “fluctuates” with flight arrivals.
According to the ministry, there are three rooms outfitted with loos put aside for migrants searching for asylum, with a fourth to be opened imminently.
It has elevated surveillance of airport amenities, elevated the variety of police, border officers and cleansing employees, whereas working with the international ministry to situation extra transit visas.
Most of the migrants had been from African international locations resembling Senegal, Mali, Equatorial Guinea and Morocco, but additionally from Colombia and Venezuela, CEAR mentioned. It mentioned they arrive and not using a visa or lack a few of the required paperwork and have to attend for his or her entry to be granted or refused.
Illegal immigration and asylum have develop into contentious political points in Europe, the United States and different nations up to now decade as extra migrants have taken harmful journeys throughout the Mediterranean and to the US-Mexico border.
CEAR mentioned a few of the points inflicting the issue at Madrid airport included a scarcity of interpreters and lengthy ready instances of 10-20 days for the purposes to be processed.
The Red Cross has additionally raised issues and determined to briefly cease offering providers on the airport.
“There comes a time when there isn’t any level in persevering with to do a job if we can not deal with these individuals as they deserve,” Jose Sanchez of the Red Cross advised Onda Cero radio. “All these persons are fleeing from very tough conditions.”