Police officers began an eviction in the early hours of Wednesday, removing around 400 migrants who had been squatting in abandoned school buildings that had reportedly lain empty since 2023.
Police in northeastern Spain began carrying out eviction orders on December 17 at an abandoned school building north of the Catalan city of Barcelona, where hundreds of mostly undocumented migrants had been squatting.
The eviction had been planned, and so most of the occupants left before the police in riot gear arrived in the early hours of the morning.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that the squat was located in the working-class city of Badalona, that borders Barcelona.
Many migrants, mostly from Senegal and Gambia, had been living in the empty school buildings, which have been vacant since 2023.
According to Badalona's mayor, Xavier Garcia Albiol, there were more than 400 migrants living in the squat. The mayor, a member of the conservative Popular Party (PP) announced the eviction in a post on X.
'Many people will be sleeping on the streets tonight'
A lawyer representing the squatters, Marta Llonch, told AP that many of the inhabitants of the squat had made ends meet by selling scrap metal collected from the streets. A few, she said, had residency and work permits, but were forced to live in the squat as they couldn't afford private accommodation.
Llonch told AP that "many people will be sleeping on the streets tonight" because of the eviction.
"Just because you evict these people, it doesn't mean they disappear," she added. "If you don't give them an alternative place...it will be a problem for them and the city," she concluded.
Authorities at the town hall, however, argued that the squat represented a public safety hazard. In 2020 for instance, an old factory occupied by around 100 migrants caught fire in Badalona, resulting in the deaths of four people.
The eviction resulted in some 'clashes' according to the news agency Reuters, which provided a series of pictures to accompany the news.
With AP and Reuters