Throughout last year, Spain processed 3,386 requests for international protection at border posts. Although the Asylum and Asylum Office does not break down which specific places, police sources say that the vast majority of applications are distributed between Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airports. This year, in January alone, 864 asylum applications were processed at the Madrid airport - and 108 people were returned - by sub-Saharan migrants who found the way of emigrating without having to climb a pasture. This new migration route has overwhelmed the reception rooms and, although the situation seems more controlled in recent days, no one dares to predict that the chaos has completely subsided.
Any online flight search engine offers tickets from Casablanca to South American countries such as Brazil, El Salvador or Bolivia for around 1,000 euros. The key is to stop in Madrid. These destination countries do not require visas for sub-Saharan citizens to fly. Once on the plane - the vast majority of which from the official Moroccan airline, Royal Air Maroc - lands in Madrid to make the stopover, the migrants tear up their passports to request international protection.
Sources from the Spanish Government say that they have not yet found the explanation for why this "fraudulent use" has now begun, as the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, called it. But the truth is that this method goes back to the summer. During the summer months, the National Police detected the first increase in travelers trying to enter Spain using the asylum office at Barajas airport. First there were Somalis with Kenyan passports – previously bought from mafias that traffic in human beings – and then they were followed by Senegalese, Mauritanians, Malians, Moroccans...
And it is at this point that the situation began to overflow, due to the lack of staff to fill out the paperwork that decides whether the request for international protection is accepted. Police sources confirm that what in normal situations could be resolved in around four days, has been extended to fourteen. The legislation prohibits detaining asylum seekers, but does limit their freedom of movement. Therefore, during that time they are kept in rooms where the maximum peaks of agglomeration have reached up to 400 migrants.
Once the request is resolved, people go to the reception system, which depends on the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. But until then they have to be in the rooms that have been expanded by the Interior because of the criticism that, to a large extent, has been channeled by police unions and the Ombudsman. At the end of December, three judges also asked the department that runs Grande-Marlaska to take "urgent measures". But without a doubt, the biggest blows to the management of this unexpected migration crisis have come from the body headed by Ángel Gabilondo.
In his latest resolution, dated Wednesday, the Ombudsman criticizes that the situation "has ostensibly worsened". The increase in arrivals at the border post, he continues, has caused "a worsening of living conditions in the rooms, an unprecedented overcrowding and a deterioration of minimum hygiene and sanitation standards". The Ombudsman's description of what he observed during his visit on January 19 does not go into detail: "The women and some minors have been moved to a room with inadequate conditions [...] there are not enough beds [...] nor basic furniture such as chairs or tables, which is why people are forced to eat on mattresses or on the floor itself [...]. The only shower has been out of service for two weeks, there is no basic hygiene equipment or feminine hygiene material [...], there are also no enabled phones, so they cannot keep in touch with the outside”.
With all this, Gabilondo concludes: "It could be that these people are allegedly being subjected to degrading treatment and undermining their moral integrity".
The Spanish Government defends the measures it has been taking as the days have passed. The space for the asylum has been expanded by 47% thanks to a fourth room opened on Tuesday in Terminal 1 of Barajas with the capacity to accommodate 162 people. The three remaining rooms are located in terminals 1, 2 and 4 satellite and accumulate an area of 1,067 square meters. The staff of the provincial immigration and borders brigade of the National Police and the Asylum and Refuge Office have also been strengthened.
There are 54 agents distributed in shifts dedicated every day of the week to conducting interviews at the border post, with the additional collaboration of two instructors from the Asylum and Refuge Office, in coordination and support roles.
In addition, after the Red Cross announced that it was abandoning the provision of its services at the airport due to health conditions, the Police took over the cleaning of the facilities with periodic disinfection. Something that has been harshly criticized by the Unified Police Union (SUP), which regrets that officers are cleaning or dispensing medicines to migrants in view of the inaction of the oenagés.
The Spanish Government, according to ministerial sources, believes that the key to controlling the situation requires cutting off irregular arrivals by imposing transit visas on sub-Saharan citizens who fraudulently use the stairs in Madrid. Since January 20, this requirement has been mandatory for migrants with Kenyan passports, which has caused, according to police sources, the number of asylum seekers of this nationality to drop significantly.
The same will apply to those who have a passport from Senegal, but it will not be until the 19th of this month. At the moment, the Spanish embassy in Morocco has asked the Moroccan authorities by means of a verbal note not to stop boarding Senegalese people who make a stopover in Spain until visas are required. According to the decline experienced by the arrival of citizens with passports from Senegal, according to the same sources, the call to Rabat seems to have had an effect.
Despite this, no one in the Interior considers this migration crisis – which is added to the one that has been punishing the Canaries since the summer – closed. What's more, the ministry fears that there could be another unexpected increase in the near future if migrants from other countries who are not required to have a transit visa are more likely to opt for these flights to enter Spain before they do the maritime crossing in a pasture.
