From Youth Hostel in Muro de Alcoi to Emergency Centre for Migrant Minors

The IVAJ youth hostel in Muro de Alcoi has been transformed into an "emergency" centre to accommodate 60 unaccompanied migrant minors arriving in the Comunitat. The Generalitat has awarded these IVAJ facilities for a period of three months, extendable depending on the situation, for 855,000 euros.

This new temporary reception centre for migrant minors already has twenty places occupied, with more users to be added "progressively" until reaching 60, detailed the Vice President and Minister of Social Services, Susana Camarero, on Tuesday.

Thus, the hostel is "perfectly prepared" for this new use and required "very little intention or very few resources" to make it available to the minors. In this regard, the Vice President noted that places can be expanded "as much as needed while locations are being sought".

The conversion of this IVAJ hostel into an "emergency" centre is due to the fact that the rest of the regional facilities are "overwhelmed", at 160%, due to the "unprecedented" arrival of migrant minors since the summer and the transfer approved by the Government.

In response to this situation, the Generalitat asked the municipalities by letter if they had resources to accommodate them, but due to their "silence" on October 3, the emergency declaration was resolved to accommodate them in this hostel as it was a resource owned by the Conselleria, "it was possible to launch it in the fastest way and with that emergency".

In this regard, it was highlighted that the first thing done was to inform the mayor that it was going to open to "establish that coordination with the City Council" since "some of these minors may require attention in educational centres, health centres or social services centres".

Camarero detailed that the system accommodates 528 unaccompanied minors and highlighted that the Consell has made "an effort to increase places by 62%" that the Botànic had, and even so, we are well above those 300 authorised places." Thus, 945 minors have already been attended to so far, when last year there were 912.

In that sense, it was emphasised that this summer has been "especially intense" in the increase in arrivals, with 258 new minors "to which must be added the transfer of 500 minors approved by the Government, initially there were 571.

Of them, "54 files with names and surnames have already been received". Last week, two minors arrived, and next Thursday, seven more minors will arrive, also from Ceuta.

The Vice President insisted that the situation in the Comunitat is different from others where "they do not arrive by boat or ferry" and also many of those who arrive are close to reaching adulthood, so they "will no longer be in the protection service". "We can only provide them with very limited attention and without preparing them for that exit from the system because the Government is not taking care of them and we do not have competencies," she criticised.

Furthermore, she asked the Government to group them in the communities where they already have relatives or remain where they already have a job, as is the case with some minors in Ceuta.