In January 2022, the 5,236 Britons registered in the Torrevieja census were the foreigners with the greatest presence in the Alicante city census, followed by Russians (4,484) and Ukrainians (3,203), who in recent years had been steadily increasing their presence in such an international town that counts among its 89,000 inhabitants with residents from 123 countries.
But the wave of refugees caused by the Russian aggression against Ukraine has radically transformed the landscape and required extra attention to a precipitous immigration in the first instance, but which has not stopped taking place to this day, a constant trickle that requires the authorities an unknown logistical deployment and resources.
The first to arrive had family or friends, but many did so without direct ties, just because they knew of the presence of numerous compatriots in certain towns, such as Torrevieja. The existence of an important previous colony has invited thousands of refugees to choose the Valencian Community as their destination, more than 30% of the total number of arrivals in Spain. Many of them are boys and girls of school age.
From February until today, the Ministry of Education has been forced to attend to the needs of 13,400 new Ukrainian students, an unexpected and problematic flood even for the institutes and schools most used to the presence of schoolchildren from different origins.
But there is something that no one has foreseen, as explained to La Vanguardia by Miquel Soler, the Autonomous Secretary of Education of the Generalitat Valenciana, the arrival of many Russian children and adolescents, no less than 6,555 since the start of the invasion, a parallel “exodus”. of whose existence neither the European Union nor the Spanish Government acknowledge receipt. That is to say, there is no money or additional personnel provided for the regional and local administrations.
It is striking that, in the case of the Russians, adds the regional secretary, “many more are from Secondary and Baccalaureate, instead of Infant and Primary, because they are young people who leave due to the possibility of being recruited soon to go to war ”. For this reason, the Generalitat Valenciana, as a report from the Department of Education points out, considers “that the Russian people who have moved are victims of the war.”
The document says that “we are the only Autonomous Community that is registering the schooling of these unexpected Russian students and we have informed the Ministry of Education since September, at the beginning of the course, stating that we are assuming schooling without any help.” In addition, he points out another serious problem: “if they are not considered as refugees, it will be difficult for some of them to certify their studies, because the legal regime of Immigration is different.”
Fortunately, up to now the coexistence between Russians and Ukrainian expatriates in the Valencian Community has been peaceful, even collaborative, and there are numerous volunteers of both nationalities who cooperate in one of the most complex issues from an educational point of view: the translation. The end of the year arrives in this case with an added problem.
Not only are the funds coming from the European Union, which did not foresee such a long conflict, running out, but the contract for 85 auxiliary translators recruited by the ministry has ended and they have not been renewed. “We do not have the powers to hire them,” argues the regional secretary, “and as long as the central government does not respond to our requirements, we are going to have a major problem.”
