The Bac de Roda settlement, which caught fire on Tuesday, has been evacuated.

BarcelonaOne day after the fire that caused two minor injuries, the Guardia Urbana deployed a special operation on Wednesday morning to evacuate the shantytown settlements located under the Calatrava bridge In Barcelona, ​​next to the Sagrera construction site, a settlement has been cleared. It is located on the corner of Bac de Roda and Huelva streets. Several officers from the Guardia Urbana (Barcelona's municipal police), who are coordinating the operation, have been deployed to the area, along with vans from the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), fire trucks from the Barcelona Fire Department, personnel from the Social Emergency and Urgent Care Center (CUESB), and cleaning services from the Barcelona City Council. Around fifty people live in squalid conditions in this area, according to data from the Sant Andreu housing union. Municipal sources confirmed yesterday that there are also minors among these families. The operation took place a day after the fire and was prompted, as is often the case, by a Fire Department report concluding that the area poses a "very serious risk" to its residents and that action must be taken "urgently."

The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) are participating with patrols specializing in public safety, order, and mediation, carrying out public safety tasks at the request of the Guardia Urbana (Barcelona's municipal police).

The residents are divided.

Residents of the settlement and surrounding streets were given a major scare yesterday when several explosions woke the neighborhood at 6:30 a.m. Shortly afterward, a large column of fire and smoke engulfed six of the shacks on this plot of land, owned by Adif (the Spanish railway infrastructure manager), which is next to the Sagrera construction site. In recent months, tensions in the area had grown due to the number of people and shacks on the site, as well as the accumulation of filth and conflicts. "It started with just a few shacks, but in the last year or year and a half, this place has become overcrowded," Ángel explained to ARA. "The truth is, I try not to walk through here at night because it scares me, and besides, with all the accumulated filth, there are enormous rats," María Dolores said yesterday. "We feel powerless and angry," added Jaume, who claims that some of the people occupying the site "basically steal."

Other residents, as well as social organizations and associations, emphasize that the problem is not isolated and that these emergency evictions offer no real residential alternative to the homeless beyond a few days in a boarding house. According to these organizations, this simply causes the encampment to relocate to another part of the city, perpetuating the problem. In total, the number of homeless people currently counted in Barcelona is about sixty settlements of huts and more than 500 people living in huts or occupied premises.