As boats of illegal migrants from Africa continue to arrive in the Canary Islands, where reception centres are saturated with a record number of 22,304 people disembarked since the beginning of the year, NGOs are called to the rescue by the State to relieve the Canaries. They are responsible for the transfer and reception of migrants in the peninsula. This is the case of the NGO Rescate.
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From our correspondent in Madrid, Diane Cambon
In general, the reception given to migrants by the inhabitants of Monterroso in the province of Lugo, in Galicia, has been rather favourable. In this village, immigrants are quite rare, and people have an open attitude. The NGO Rescate rents a hotel there. For the past three weeks, 125 sub-Saharan migrants have been living there.
The director of theNGO in charge of migrants tells how in the first week of their arrival, dozens of residents brought clothes for the migrants. They also organized a small welcome party and a friendly football match. In fact, the local club’s football pitch is open every afternoon for migrants and the stadium has become a meeting place for local youth and sub-Saharans. However, there have also been some hostile reactions, especially against the owner of the hotel. However, Augusta likes to say that she herself immigrated to England when she was young to find work and that is why today she opens her doors to young people from Africa. Galicia has been a land of emigration, which probably explains this more open attitude towards those who take the road for a better life.
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In addition, here in Galicia, where the population is old, the arrival of young people is considered a blessing. Many villagers hope that they will stay to work in the area. In fact, the director of the NGO, Carlos, explained how these days entrepreneurs or farmers had gone to the hotel to look for men to work in the grape harvest, for example.
The NGO is careful to warn migrants not to give in to these temporary jobs, often paid below the minimum hourly wage, because if they leave the hotel and the structure organized by the NGO with the Spanish courses and training, they can no longer return and are released into the wild without legal protection.
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