Sri Lankan immigrants await expulsion on Canary Islands

Sri Lankans illegal immigrants reached the Canary Islands on Saturday faced expulsion from the island of Tenerife as Spain insisted they must go home.
Local authorities were processing the group after herding them onto buses and taking them to a reception area portside, and some of the crew faced police interrogation on suspicion of people-trafficking.

No sooner had Spain repatriated a group of African immigrants than overwhelmed Canary Islanders had to deal Friday with more illegal migrants in the shape of the Pakistanis and Sri Lankans. But barely had they arrived than Spanish First Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, promising Madrid would now get tough after a record 25,000 arrivals in the islands this year, promptly said the majority would be summarily sent home.

The Pakistanis and Sri Lankans brought a new aspect of the problem to bear on reaching the southern Tenerife port of Puerto de los Cristianos in a metal craft barely 40 metres (100 feet) long, whereas the sub-Saharan Africans use wooden fishing boats.

“Some of them are Sri Lankans and others are Pakistanis,” said regional leader Jose Segura of the latest arrivals, forecasting it would be “much easier” to repatriate them than the Africans.

He added two Asians had been hospitalised with dehydration and 16 others had received treatment from the Red Cross.