"I'm considering returning to Palestine": the complaint of a group of asylum seekers in Catalonia

Malgrat de Mar / BarcelonaEverything was fine. The food. The treatment. The attention. The services. Until the tourists left at the beginning of autumn. "From one day to the next, we went from being good families to bad families," explains a Syrian woman who is part of a large group of asylum seekers residing in Malgrat de Mar and who denounce the feeling of "abandonment" they have experienced since October. They claim to have found cockroaches in the food, to have been given flowery and expired food, to have had fleas in the rooms, for the heating not to have worked for months on one of the floors of the hotel where they are staying, for the hot water to have constant problems, and for being denied money to buy clothes or transportation tickets that they are entitled to.

The organization that manages the service, Movement for Peace (MPDL), categorically denies this: if there has been any incident, it has been isolated and resolved immediately. For example, the problem with the heating was solved in two days, they assure. And the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration conducted an inspection in November and confirmed that the services were "in proper condition and functioning."

A semi-deserted hotel

The upper floors of the Cartago Nova hotel are closed and fenced off. It's winter, and Malgrat de Mar isn't an appealing destination for the tourists who flock to the Catalan coast in the summer. On the first three floors, however, clothes and towels hang on balconies. At the building's entrance, in the middle of the promenade, a group of sub-Saharan women chat animatedly while children play with a scooter. One of them embraces a young woman from Eastern Europe. A few meters away, three young people listen to music, oblivious to the leisurely stroll of pedestrians braving a typical dreary winter day.

The Malgrat shelter has a capacity for 157 people, and since its opening three years ago, nearly 600 people have passed through. From all corners of the world. People from all cultures living under one roof, seeking a safe haven in Catalonia. A future. They are fleeing war. They are fleeing hatred. They are escaping the persecution they suffered in their country.

The complaint, made by over twenty users, was spearheaded by two Russian women who left their country because they felt threatened due to their sexual orientation. They are LGBTQ+ content creators and were persecuted by Vladimir Putin's regime. This led them to Catalonia, where they have already lived in three different places: first in Reus, then in Vilanova i la Geltrú, and, since the beginning of autumn, in Malgrat de Mar. But the complaint is also supported by families and citizens from many other countries. ARA has spoken with Ukrainians, Syrian families, and Palestinians. "One day they told us the hotel was closing, and everything started to deteriorate," they explain. Suddenly, they lament, their reality changed radically.

"It's a matter of dignity," a Palestinian man summarizes, adding that when he approaches the hotel along the seafront, he feels like he's entering "a prison." This man spent eleven days in the hospital, and when he returned, no one asked him "how he was" nor did they reimburse him for the taxi fare that took him to the emergency room. A colleague, a young engineer, laments the living conditions and the lack of training he receives. He feels he's wasting his time, confined to the hotel without any chance at a decent life. "I'm considering returning to Palestine," he concludes resignedly. In fact, the bombs and deprivations in Gaza didn't deter a fellow countryman, who left a few months earlier. They share the feeling that the 18-month program they're each supposed to have to resolve their situation isn't being implemented, and time will keep passing until they're "expelled" and "left on the street."

One of the Syrian families claims that one of their daughters was warned that she could not get pregnant while enrolled in the program. "Why are we now considered bad families? Are we to be kicked out? They told us we have to go back to Syria," complains a mother, who laments that her children couldn't use the swimming pool during the summer. It was reserved for tourists. MPDL, which manages four centers and currently serves 514 people, admits that pool use is not included, and that outside of peak season they cannot afford to hire staff dedicated exclusively to lifeguarding and pool supervision. They already have 26 employees dedicated to the 157 asylum seekers or stateless persons living in Malgrat de Mar. Among them are two teachers, accredited with the corresponding qualifications, to teach language classes. This is another complaint from the residents, who feel that the courses are very limited and they make practically no progress in their language skills.

The teachers pay for the tickets

The two Russian girls first encountered problems with their classes while living in Reus. They claim that the organization wouldn't provide them with tickets to study in Barcelona, ​​where they spent four hours a day at the Faculty of Human Rights at the University of Barcelona. Four hours of class and four hours of travel. "They weren't given train cards or money to buy them, and since they wanted to learn and were interested, a classmate and I paid for their tickets because otherwise they would have had to drop out of the course, which would have been a shame. They were two girls eager to study and work, and instead of helping them, they faced nothing but obstacles."

When they arrived in Malgrat de Mar, things got worse, although they have no complaints about the hotel staff, but rather about the person in charge of MPDL. They had a confrontation with her that even ended up in court. Both women, who went to the Espectro organization for advice and help in managing the conflict, report that they were held in their room, as if they were "prisoners," and that there were subsequent cross-complaints with the organization's director, who accused them of threats and harassment. However, the Arenys de Mar Court of Instruction number 6 ultimately dismissed the case because it found no evidence of a crime. This incident escalated the situation. Disciplinary proceedings were opened against them, and an attempt was made to transfer them to Calella de Mar without showing them any official document from the Ministry to justify the decision. Both young women maintain that an increasingly oppressive atmosphere of fear was created. After this episode of "institutional violence," and having spoken with other users of different nationalities, they sent a complaint to the Ministry of Inclusion with all their grievances, and three months later, they still haven't received a response. Neither the entity nor the ministry has responded to ARA regarding this procedure, citing data protection and confidentiality reasons.