Palma airport is hostile territory for the homeless who live there.

Palma / BarcelonaHis name is Arnaldo, he's 83 years old, and his is a story with a happy ending. Originally from Bologna, he found himself homeless because he couldn't pay his rent and ended up sleeping in his city's airport. The workers responded with solidarity: the newsstand worker gave him a newspaper every day, the cafeteria worker brought him food and drinks... and months went by, up to nine, until the City Council noticed his situation and offered him a place to live a year ago. Arnaldo's story is reminiscent of Dominico's. He's also Italian, 78 years old, and sleeps in Barcelona's El Prat Airport. However, Dominico hasn't been so lucky: Three weeks ago he saw himself thrown out of the airport, in a move by Aena to try to empty the infrastructure of the hundred homeless people who live there.

On February 27, Aena employees invited the hundred or so homeless people living at the airport to leave, restricting access for a few hours, claiming the facilities needed to be cleaned. A year ago, they were doing the same thing at the world's largest airport, Atlanta, USA, where some 300 homeless people lived. The Barcelona airport was a pilot test that lasted two days (most then returned) and, according to sources consulted by ARA, could be repeated this week. That night, many homeless people had to sleep outside the airport, as the social response was insufficient and did not guarantee them an alternative. However, sources familiar with the operation affirm that it will be repeated. In this regard, sources from the Department of Social Rights affirm that they have been looking for options for these vulnerable people for some time. Along the same lines, they maintain that, for the moment, they have not asked for help.

Pressures

But Barcelona's airport isn't the only one serving as a shelter for homeless people. At Son Santjoan Airport in Palma, there are 41 people sleeping there, and they also report that the pressure to leave the airport is growing. All this comes three weeks after the pilot test at El Prat Airport. "This has become a prison for a week!" says PM, a 59-year-old man who has lived there for almost a month. The homeless people at Son Santjoan explain that they had hidden their belongings in places they describe as "strategic," such as some corners of the fourth-floor parking lot, behind partitions left due to construction work, or behind vending machines, among other hiding places. Some left them on benches within the facility or in corners where they could go unnoticed. Even so, many are no longer there because Aena "threw them away," according to most people's complaints.

ARA has had access to a conversation between a homeless person and an Aena employee who handles lost property. "They haven't taken anything here. If they know the belongings belong to people who spend the night here, they'll throw them away," the airport employee confesses when asked about the missing suitcases. She also warns: "This has happened to everyone who lives here. You shouldn't leave your belongings alone." Aena, which declined to comment, noted that this matter "is being handled by the social services of the Consell de Mallorca."

"We don't understand what they're doing to us"

However, the homeless at Palma Airport emphasize that Aena has "looked the other way for a long time" and they don't understand the company's insistence on evicting them in the middle of winter. "Before, they collaborated and got along well with us, but we don't understand what they're doing to us now," says Claudia (not her real name). In addition to having unfriendly furniture, Aena has prohibited people from pushing benches together so they can stretch. But it also doesn't allow them to lie on the floor. They have to sleep sitting up. "Now we sleep like mummies, sitting up and not moving. If we lean back even a little, the security personnel come and yell at us rudely, telling us to get up or they'll wake up with a kick," explains Andreu (not her real name). At El Prat Airport, there are also homeless people who claim that some workers mistreat them and throw their belongings at them.

Aena sources deny that this is due to any state strategy to evict the homeless, and say that each airport manages this situation with local social services. This coordination is not always easy, as demonstrated by the situation at Barajas Airport in Madrid. Around 500 homeless people live there, although some of them are waiting for an asylum application to be resolved. In recent weeks, the Community of Madrid has accused Aena of "derelictness of duty" for allowing these people to sleep in its infrastructure. The problem is repeated in the Canary Islands, where there are homeless people sleeping in the airports of Gran Canaria and Tenerife. And beyond Spain, the situation is also repeated in Paris, with around 100 homeless people at Charles de Gaulle Airport and at Heathrow Airport in London.