Laurence Dollimore
MADRID has been blasted for moving at least 494 migrants to a prison in Malaga.
The migrants, who were rescued or washed up on the shores of Murcia and Almeria, were moved to the newly built prison in Archidona earlier this week.
TThe Ministry of the Interior justified the decision, saying the prison is currently not in use and that the measure was temporary.
It said a ‘collapse of the system’ due to authorities being overwhelmed left little other options.
The Junta de Andalucia has joined various NGOs in denouncing the internment of immigrants in the prison, labelling it ‘totally inappropriate’.
The PSOE denounced it is an ‘illegal’ measure, and an ‘authentic barbarity’ that ‘violates fundamental rights’.
“They are not criminals and do not deserve to be held in a prison,” the Socialists said.
Meanwhile, the Acaip prison union warned of a ‘deliberate attempt’ to ‘cheat’ or give wrong information to the courts of Almeria and Murcia, which authorized the internment.
The president of Acaip, José Luis Pascual, said the court records of the two provinces indicate that the immigrants have gone go to a Foreigners’ Detention Center which ‘has never existed’.
The union plans to take legal action, saying it does not understand how seven courts could have sent immigrants to a CIE that does not exist.
The migratory flow to Spain has skyrocketed with 15,000 immigrants arriving in Andalucia so far this year.
Algerian immigrants transferred from Murcia to the Archidona prison are demanding freedom by screaming and trying to attract attention by making signs with shirts and towels from inside the prison.
The City Council of Archidona, several unions and NGOs claim the penitentiary does not even have drinking water, but the Government delegate in Andalucia, Antonio Sanz, denied the claims, saying they come from ‘those who have not visited the center’.
