In recent weeks, the Canary Islands archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of West Africa, has been experiencing an increase in the numbers of migrants arriving on its shores. In fact, since the beginning of the year, more than 32,000 migrants have arrived on the chain of islands’ shores.

The regional authorities, particularly on some of the smaller islands like El Hierro, have declared themselves "overwhelmed" and asked the national government in Madrid for help. "We have neither the resources nor the calm, to deal with the avalanche coming in," the Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo told the news agency Reuters.

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Among the arrivals, reports Reuters this week, are several cases of potentially incorrect age assessment. Young people who say they are 15 or 16 have been assessed by the police on arrival as adults and put in adult camps.

'We are children...they betrayed us'

Teenager Moussa Camara is one of them. Originally orphaned in his native Guinea, reports Reuters, he undertook an 11-day voyage towards the Canary Islands. Twenty people died in his boat en route. Camara survived and arrived on the Canary Islands on October 27. "Exhausted, famished and nursing sores from the sun," reports Reuters.

But even though he survived the journey, his problems had only just begun, reports Reuters. That’s because on arrival, Spanish police assessed him as an adult. "We are children...they betrayed us," Camara told Reuters.

Along with another companion he met on the boat, Camara has been sent to an old military base up in the mountains of Tenerife. The camp is for adults, not children. They are waiting at the base for transfers to mainland Spain or other parts of Europe.

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In order to change the initial assessment, Camara would require a bone test. The Red Cross, which works in many of the camps, has confirmed that they believe Camara is 15 and not 18 as the police assessed. In fact, on arrival, he and his friend were both assigned the same birthday, January 1, 2005.

If he stays classed as an adult, Camara will miss out on the extra support to find accommodation and a place to study until he is 18. Even if he is transferred to mainland Spain, he will be left to fend for himself almost immediately.

Ministry examines more cases

The Ministry of the Interior and Migration told Reuters that is has been looking into at least 48 cases of suspected misclassification, minors classed as adults, at the camp where Camara is being held in recent months. Four have been confirmed as children, 30 are pending age tests, and 14 are still in assessment, writes Reuters.

A migration lawyer in southern Spain told Reuters that he had been seeing "high numbers of minors arriving in mainland Spain who had been registered as adults in the Canary Islands. This is not a one-off case," explained Fran Morenilla.

Amnesty International published a report on November 3 in which it found that 12 out of 29 migrants at adult centers in the Canary Islands were actually minors.

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Biometric testing: 'discriminatory and illegal'

Spain, like many other countries in Europe, uses biometric testing to determine the age in disputed cases of migrants who have arrived and been assessed as adults but claim to be children. However, the tests, which can include in some cases bone scans, are not used to assess every migrant on arrival.

Now organizations like the Spanish Network for Immigration and Refugee Assistance (Ayuda al Refugiado) are criticizing the use of biometric testing, calling it "discriminatory and illegal," reports regional newspaper La Provincia, a newspaper based on Gran Canaria.

The network's general secretary, Rafael Esudero, told La Provincia last week that he thought trying to determine the ages of people from another continent, in this case Africa, using European criteria was wrong. He said the technology was limited in this case and that his organization and others like it would continue to challenge the authorities when they believed cases had been misdetermined.

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Many of the centers, both for adults and minors, in the Canary Islands, particularly smaller ones like El Hierro, are reaching, or have already reached capacity. The authorities are turning to tests and visual assessment to try and decongest some of these reception centers and get people moved towards the Spanish mainland as soon as possible.

Around 2,000 age determination tests pending

According to La Provincia, there are around 4,800 migrant minors in the Canary Islands at the moment. The Ministry of Social Welfare, Equality, Youth, Children and Families told the newspaper that there were about 2,000 age determination tests pending, although not all of them would involve bone scans.

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In order to speed up the process, the Canary Islands regional government has agreed to deploy more forensic doctors and increase the number of weekly bone scans. Data already gathered in November indicated, reported La Provincia, that seven out of ten migrants who were tested turned out to be adults.

Escudero told another local news portal Canarias Ahora, that the people in question, "are not migrants, or minors, or children, they are people." On the tiny island of El Hierro, the deputy leader Rafael Yanes told Canarias Ahora that the reception service for minors was "overfull and on the brink of collapse." Reuters reported that the youngest in that center for unaccompanied minors is just nine years old.