Spanish police evict hundreds of migrants from squat deemed a safety hazard

BARCELONA Spain AP Police in northeastern Spain began carrying out eviction orders Wednesday to clear an abandoned school building where hundreds of mostly undocumented newcomers were living in a squat north of Barcelona Knowing that the eviction was coming the bulk of the occupants had left before police in riot gear from Catalonia s regional police entered the school s premises early in the morning under court orders The squat was located in Badalona a working class city that borders Barcelona Various sub-Saharan expatriates mostly from Senegal and Gambia had moved into the empty school building since it was left abandoned in The mayor of Badalona Xavier Garc a Albiol reported the evictions in a post on X As I had promised the eviction of the squat of illegal squatters in the B school in Badalona begins he wrote Lawyer Marta Llonch who represents the squatters explained that various of them lived from selling scrap metal collected from the streets while a insufficient others have residency and work permits but were forced to live there because they couldn t afford housing Various people are going to sleep on the street tonight Llonch reported The Associated Press Just because you evict these people it doesn t mean they disappear If you don t give them an alternative place to live they will now be on the street which will be a obstacle for them and the city Garc a Albiol of the conservative Popular Party has built his political career as Badalona s long-standing mayor with an anti-immigration stance The Badalona town hall had argued that the squat was a residents safety hazard In an old factory occupied by around a hundred transients in Badalona caught fire and four people were killed in the blaze Like other southern European countries Spain has for more than a decade seen a steady influx of refugees who risked their lives overcoming the Mediterranean or Atlantic in small boats While a great number of developed countries have taken a hard-line position against migration Spain s left-wing leadership has disclosed that legal migration has helped its commercial sector grow Source