The Cultural Enrichment of Cartagena

Cartagena is a city in southeastern Spain on the Mediterranean coast. The city has recently been inundated by throngs of migrants that have been intercepted by Frontex and the Spanish maritime rescue service. The following video is a report on the disposition of those migrants and the problems they generate for the municipality.

If you parse the vice mayor’s statements, you’ll notice that she is basically making a NIMBY argument — she’s not against immigration per se, but just expects the central government to place them somewhere besides Cartagena.

Many thanks to FouseSquawk for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:05   A new wave of launches this weekend from the coast of Cartagena.
00:09   The Civil Guard and Marine Rescue and Frontex [French] patrols
00:13   have intercepted about 20 launches
00:17   with some 500 immigrants on board. According to a report
00:21   from a government office, the national police are
00:25   expediting the procedures to deliver these people as soon as possible to NGO reception centers.
00:33   It has been an intense weekend. State security forces
00:37   located boats close to the coast of Cartagena early Saturday morning.
00:41   For the space of two days there has been a continuous flow.
00:45   Eighteen launches with almost 200 people on board.
00:49   Some were transferred to the port of Santa Lucia. Others,
00:53   located in front of Cabo de Palos, and two
00:57   at the limit of the waters of Algeria. In one of them
01:00   two minors, one woman and one baby were traveling.
01:03   The government representative recalled the magnitude of the state mechanism
01:07   in collaboration with other social organizations to confront this humanitarian drama.
01:12   He insisted that all the immigrants who arrived in recent hours
01:16   will be transferred to different reception centers
01:20   or taken by NGOs. Francisco Jimenez informed us that
01:24   that the national police are expediting the procedures
01:28   that form part of the national reception system.
01:34   And the vice mayor, Noelia Arroyo, has advised
01:38   that it is a political error, and with the arrival of the launches,
01:42   Cartagena could be converted into a mafia target.
01:46   On one side, what we know is
01:50   there are immigrants who are arriving on our coasts in launches,
01:54   and that they are leaving them in the streets, and on the other hand,
01:58   the data and the numbers that they offering don’t add up.
02:02   Because of that we say the obligation of the government
02:06   is to provide us with information. We have offered them institutional collaboration,
02:12   absolute institutional loyalty to also put in motion
02:16   our municipal social network. We have asked
02:20   that the reception protocol be activated. And what we want to avoid is that
02:24   in the end Cartagena could turn into a safe port of entry
02:30   for the arrival of illegal immigrants.
 

2 thoughts on “The Cultural Enrichment of Cartagena

  1. Illegal immigration pure and simple-these people should be quickly returned to where they set out from and told to make proper application for asylum. If matters are taken in hand promptly and severely then the Millions now moving day by day through Africa and the Middle East to the Med, will simply over power the authorities throughout Europe.

Comments are closed.