SPAIN'S refugee council has announced that the fourth one-stop assistance centre for incomers from Ukraine is now open – this time in Málaga, at its conference and trade fair complex.
According to the organisation, CEAR, over 70,000 people from Ukraine have already been granted asylum in Spain or are in the process of getting it, having started the ball rolling.
National president Pedro Sánchez visits the CREADE refugee centre in Málaga, the fourth to open in Spain since March 11 (photo: CEAR)
If they have commenced asylum procedures, they will be granted it, since Spain considers that it is unsafe for anyone originally from Ukraine to return there and has promised unconditional residence rights and work permits to all of the eastern European country's citizens, even if they were already living on Spanish soil before the Russian invasion.
Over Easter, Princess Leonor – back from sixth-form college in Wales on her holidays – visited the Reception, Welcome and Distribution Centre (CREADE) in the up-market Madrid commuter town of Pozuelo de Alarcón, along with her sister Sofía and parents, to find out more about their work, and how they had helped 6,355 Ukrainian arrivals up to and including the end of March, within 20 days of opening.
CREADE centres were then launched in Alicante, on March 16, and in Barcelona on March 17, and by the end of that month had attended to 5,579 refugees between them.
As well as resettling, medical care, Spanish language and culture lessons, schooling for children, and counselling, the CREADE hubs transact residence and work permit applications for the Ukrainians, delivering both these to all who request them within 24 hours.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com