Pedro Sarmento Costa / Lusa
Some are firefighters, some not. Restaurant in Oliveira do Hospital gained prominence on social networks: “Humanity lesson at a time of prejudice”.
Nuno Markl described: it is a “lesson of humanity at a time of prejudice. ”The description is about a Indian restaurant who was Offer food to firefighters in Oliveira do Hospital. In addition to the food, some Indians were seen fighting the flames on the spot.
Ganga Singh, 29 -year -old Indian and owner of the Milano Kebab & Pizza restaurant in Oliveira do Hospital, justified: “We are here to help everyone”.
“We have done everything in our power to assist. There are days when we carry buckets, others that we are helping the firefighters and hold on the truck hose,” he says wins.
Brazilians, Nepalese, Bangladeshians and Indians They are also protagonists of fires In Portugal, a sign of the demographic change of territories, outside the large urban centers.
“In my life I never saw anything like that, I never thought May the fire be so large, so strong, ”he tells Lusa, through telephone contact, the Nepalese Subash, who saw his house destroyed by a fire for about two weeks in Zambujeira do Mar, Odemira.
This is one of the municipalities that has resisted to depopulation thanks to the fixation of immigrants for agricultural work, as is the case with Subashh.
In 2013, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), there were only 669 foreigners with residence, a number that went to 3,197 in 2023 (an increase of 377%), which does not include pending orders, still calculating.
In April, the authorities estimated at 1.6 million the number of foreigners in 2024, according to an agency for integration, migrations and asylum (AIMA), but the final report has not yet been published, so the most current data, segmented by a county, are 2023.
Four hundred kilometers to the north, in Oliveira do Hospital -which had only 50 foreigners in 2013, 10 years later was 283, which corresponds to an increase of 466% -Bangladesian Jewel knows what the fires are. It’s Forest Sapador and one of those that paves the way to the work of firefighters.
“It’s the craziness. We never stop, we can’t stop, we have to protect people, ”says Jewel, who works for a private forest management company.
“These days, our job is to destroy the trees and the bush, to protect the houses,” explained the Sapador, hired at Bangladesh a year ago to do this work in Portugal.
Sana Gupta and his wife live in a village inside the Guard (56 foreigners in 2013 and 572 in 2023, a 920%increase) and never saw in their Nepal nothing comparable to what happened to them two days ago.
“This was the terror. There are only elderly, poor people here. We opened our house to our neighbors and two ladies have spent a few hours here, waiting for this to pass, ”recalls Sana, who has been in Portugal for two years, a country that says she is“ special, particularly in the villages that are so beautiful ”.
From the fire, Sana remembers the darkness: “It was day and it seemed at night. And then a strong noise was heard. But the firefighters helped a lot. They are impressive.”
Praise of these has often heard Brazilian Márcio Christo, deputy of the Pataias Voluntary Firefighters (Alcobaça, who had 90 foreigners in 2013 and 1,537 in 2023, an increase of 1600%), which this time was not in the north.
At 51 years old and live in Portugal since 2002, Márcio entered the firefighters in 2011, a normal route for those who, already in Brazil, were very linked to community associativism.
And it was in Portugal that he knew the force of fire: “It’s something inexplicable, It is a living, incomprehensible being a few times, that we must respect, because it usually does what we want. ”
It was one of the first firefighters to reach the beginning of the fire that destroyed the Pinhal de Leiria in 2017, near Falca Beach. “We can’t hold it,” he laments.
Today, as an element of command, it is more out of operations, but respects the courage of those who fight. “Anyone inside knows how it is. It’s very strange, we are surrounded and we have a 25 diameter hose and three thousand liters of water for that flame world.”
Fire fighting is not just made by those who are firefighter or cleans the woods, but corresponds to a collective effort that includes things as simple as logistics.
Indian Ganga Singh owns restoration establishments in Oliveira do Hospital and put his 25 employees to distribute meals to firefighters.
“It is our obligation. I don’t do this to please, but because we all have to help each other, ”said the businessman, who has been in Portugal for nine years and in Oliveira do Hospital for two and a half years.
“There was a restaurant in Coimbra, but after going to Serra da Estrela, I fell in love and came here because there was nothing like ‘Kebabs’,” Ganga explained, who praises his new countrymen.
“People are all very friendly and welcoming. I felt at home quickly,” he says.
Speaking to Lusa, the mayor of Oliveira do Hospital, José Francisco Rolo, recalls that the county has a great “tradition of welcoming other communities” and that, “nowadays, when you want labor to work, you need to go for foreigners”.
“Among the forest sappers, most are foreigners, many of the Indost or Africa and work well. There are no Portuguese to ensure agriculture, forestry or services, ”summarized the mayor.
“Oliveira do Hospital has an old tradition of Belgian, Dutch or German immigrants. Today others arrive, but all these communities mobilize against fire, which is the common enemy” and “There are no nationalities”, there is “commitment and work”.
“There is no difference, I see them defending their belongings and forest. They also panic like the Portuguese and also seek safe reception zones and accept the nominations of the authorities,” added José Francisco Rolo.
“When residing in a village, such as the Ten’s Village or the grandfather [terras fustigadas pelas chamas]the whole community mobilizes to defend their belongings and the resistance and the work of the population have been heroic, ”said the mayor, who criticizes the discourse against immigrants, particularly in more unpopulated areas.
But for the integration of immigrants, it is not enough employment, but the country of reception allows them to live. This does not yet happen in Portugal with Jewel and Subash.
“Without my children, I’m here incomplete,” vented the Bangladesh Sapador. Further south, the Nepalese farmer agrees.
Subash has been in Portugal for four years and does not know when he can have his family, who stayed in Nepal. “I dream of this day, I want to live here and it’s not a fire that will keep me from being here.”
