Spain to allow aid workers into migrant centres

MADRID, June 9 (Reuters) Spain will allow aid workers access to illegal immigrant detention centres in the Canary Islands to give mainly African inmates advice on their rights and refugee status, an independent aid agency has said.

The head of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid CEAR said the move will allay concerns about the treatment of migrants who have been flooding into the Canaries on rickety wooden boots from West Africa.

CEAR's Ignacio Diaz de Aguilar said Spanish law is ambiguous about conditions under which the migrants can be held. Centres have filled to overflowing as the Spanish government scrambles to reach deals with West African countries to stop the rush of migrants desperate for new lives in Europe.

The Red Cross already visits the centres for 8 hours a day, but provides only medical aid.

''With the current undefined legal structure ... there is an argument which says that (immigrants) have even fewer rights in practice (in detention centres) than they would do in a prison where everything is much more regulated,'' Diaz de Aguilar told Reuters on Wednesday.

Accusations of abuse, such as immigrant money being stolen by officials, made to Reuters by a former detainee and a lawyer on the island, were denied by police, who run the centres.

''We have been asking for access to detention centres for many years,'' Diaz de Aguilar said.

Secretary of State for Security Antonio Camacho told CEAR it could visit the centres, Diaz de Aguilar said.

More than 9,500 immigrants have arrived in the Canaries on boats this year, double the number in the same period last year.

A lawyer working in the Canary Islands said with no oversight by an independent authority, the possibility of abuse of power at the centres is great.

''The law needs to be reformed. These people would have more rights if they were criminals in prison for committing murder, because in prison, there is someone there to oversee treatment,'' said the lawyer, who asked not to be named.

A Reuters request for access to the centres in Tenerife was denied by central government authorities on the island. A spokeswoman said conditions in the centres were very good.

''The government has to take active measures ... to guarantee that all those who arrive who are vulnerable or who might be refugees, get help,'' Diaz de Aguilar said.

Twelve EU lawmakers will visit the Canary Islands on Thursday and Friday to view detention centres in Tenerife and Fuerteventura, and get first hand information on how illegal migrants are treated, said French lawmaker Patrick Gaubert, who chairs the delegation.

EU lawmakers have already visited illegal migrants centres on the Italian island of Lampedusa, Paris, and Malta, where Gaubert said they witnessed ''unacceptable conditions''.

REUTERS SK VC0415