Spanish Minister Calls for Measures to Address Asylum Seekers at Madrid Airport

"If transit visas need to be introduced, they will be to prevent these uses," Grande-Marlaska told the press after a meeting with his Moroccan counterpart, Abdelouafi Laftit, stressing the need to "take measures" at Barajas airport to guarantee the rights of these asylum seekers. The Spanish Interior Minister also assured that the Spanish government is working to solve the problem of "overcrowding" in the asylum centers, raised by the Unified Police Union (SUP), reports Europa Press.

To recall, the SUP has been demanding for weeks that transit visas be granted to passengers on flights from Morocco, as has been done with Kenya, and that AENA and organizations like the Red Cross agree to take charge of the 350 migrants, including women and children, who live in deplorable conditions in the Barajas asylum centers. Last Thursday, the union again denounced the fact that passengers on Royal Air Maroc’s daily flights from Casablanca apply for asylum once they make a stopover in Spain.

According to the SUP, bed bugs have been detected in the Barajas asylum centers where the majority of the residents, of Moroccan, Kenyan or Senegalese origin, come from Casablanca. This is why it is demanding transit visas for all Royal Air Maroc passengers from this Moroccan city to Salvador, Bolivia or Brazil. The latter get rid of their papers when they get off the plane and then go to the border post to apply for asylum, it explains. Others try to climb the fence at the border to illegally enter Spain.

In addition, the Spanish Interior Minister welcomed the presence, at Casablanca airport, of a Spanish officer well aware of the situation, proof of the good migration cooperation between the two countries, which he calls for strengthening.