hour at the old B9 institute in Badalona. The rumors that were circulating have come true despite the intense downpour that, the day before, flooded part of the city: at 7:00 a.m. this Wednesday, a large police deployment began the eviction of what, until now, was the largest migrant settlement in Catalonia. Although some have left in recent days, aware that eviction was imminent, the bulk of the residents – there were more than 400 – have decided to remain, until the last minute, in the old teaching center that, for more than two years, has been their roof and refuge.
have already begun to collect their belongings under the surveillance of a very extensive police deployment that includes members of the local police, the Mossos d’Esquadra and the National Police Corps, the latter with powers in matters of immigration. Neither the protest called at the first hour by the organizations that support the residents of the institute nor the last-minute judicial appeals have changed an outcome that was set on December 4. That day, the judge agreed to the Badalona City Council’s request to enter the premises and remove the occupants within a maximum period of 15 days and during “daytime” hours. It is the solution that the mayor, Xavier García Albiol (PP), had been demanding for months, arguing that the B9 migrants are mostly criminals and cause problems of insecurity and incivility.
Ibrahim N., a Nigerian, arrived in Spain a month ago and lived for a few days in the settlement. “I went out last week. There were a lot of people and it was already said that the police could arrive at any moment,” he explained along with the first group that left the premises to the sound of drums and batuques. There, outside, activists have gathered to protest the eviction and criticize the police. “They pay me my salary for throwing the townspeople onto the streets.”
After losing the battle in court, the group’s lawyers filed to demand a temporary stay of the eviction. The court, based in Strasbourg, told them no on Tuesday, a few hours after the court order was executed. The resolution specified that the occupiers could reclaim measures if there was “a change in circumstances,” and cited as an example if “social services failed to provide adequate assistance.”
And that is, precisely, the great unknown of this collective eviction operation of a migrant settlement, one of the largest carried out in Spain. In its writings to the judge, the Badalona City Council made it clear that, not even to the 166 people who are being monitored by social services. In conversation with this newspaper, Albiol explained that around thirty people, the most vulnerable, would receive “very temporary” first assistance (boarding house or hotel).
Forced to move in recent years, due to eviction, from warehouse to warehouse and from premises to premises, . Those who left before the eviction, explain people from the group that supports them, have settled “in other settlements” or, directly, in open tents. The rest, that is, the majority, also have no place to go.”
