The Canarian Finisterre that not even the emergency of the cayucos could save: "In Madrid they forget us"

The island of El Hierro witnesses the arrival of migrants in an irregular situation with desolation and contained indignation. Since 2003, it has not been seen in figures similar to what it is these days. At the exit of the El Abuelo Gofio Mill, in Valverde, a client is asked about immigration. He suggests that the best thing is to “talk about the island's food”, something that in another restaurant, El Encuentro – a mythical meeting center for security officials on the island – customers do not want to know anything about border controls..

Next year, the Canary Islands will celebrate three decades since the first boat arrived. As the surveillance system was implemented in Fuerteventura, the mafias chose to leave the Sahara to pump hashish and mislead with some shipment from Tarfaya, but the human mass by sea, when moving south, uses a route that ends with the cayucos in El Hierro, the westernmost island of Spain. “And that's why in Madrid they don't find a solution, because their business on the islands is extractive, in fishing and hotels, they don't care, and we Canarians know that they don't care.. “They forget us,” says the indignant Domingo Martín Alfonso, president of the Canary Sea Platform, who has made an appointment with Zarzuela to explain the island's problem in immigration matters..

Juan José Falcón, teacher, has just left a supermarket in the capital, Valverde. “The prices are what they are because of the insularity,” he points out, evasive, although he later adds that “the people of El Hierro are calm, but they do not isolate themselves from the problem” that they are experiencing these days.. He himself does not know how long they will last in this situation.. Being “a quiet town”, remember that everyone knows each other; but they are also aware of “the indifference and abandonment of Madrid, the absence of answers and that everything that happens in the Canary Islands is long overdue”. The only thing that is clear to him is that “the cayucos are going to continue arriving.”

Manuel Rodríguez, returned from Venezuela, lives next to his sailboat of just eight meters, in La Restinga. “I know what is happening perfectly, a premeditated plan is happening here,” he says.. In his opinion, “it is clear that we are the Finisterre of Spain in the Atlantic”. And he explores this idea: “Seen from America we are the first European land, but in Madrid they look at us as if we don't fit in”. So much so, he believes, that even the Minister of the Interior “does not know what means” they have to stop the migratory blow: “He doesn't even know that the island of El Hierro exists,” this neighbor ironically says..

For his part, from El Pinar, Francisco Arbelo, a former private banking employee who is renovating his house to plan his retirement and work remotely, points out that “El Hierro is not on the maps nor has it ever intended to be.”. Perhaps in this way we can understand what is happening these days, when the cayucos do not stop arriving, but the help is long in coming, despite the warnings from Security Forces and Bodies, political authorities and also neighbors..