The square where people evicted from the old high school in Badalona were living in squalor has been cleared.

BarcelonaThe approximately 50 people who had been living in precarious conditions in front of the former B9 high school in Badalona for the past two days have also been evicted from the area where they had settled. This Friday morning, the Badalona municipal police began removing all those who had settled in front of the building from the esplanade following the Wednesday's eviction

Until recently, around 400 people lived in the abandoned school. After this week's eviction, about fifty people had settled in the square in front of it with nowhere else to go. They spent two nights sleeping rough, waiting to find a place to stay.

For this operation, which began around 7:00 AM, the city council deployed approximately fifteen units of the Guardia Urbana (Barcelona's municipal police), including riot police. The activists who have been mediating between the police and those being evicted—members of the Socialist Housing Union of Catalonia and Badalona Acull—asked the officers for more time to clear the encampment. Along with the police, several municipal cleaning service vehicles also entered the square. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), who participated in the eviction of the B9 building and also in monitoring the building after its evacuation, did not intervene in clearing the square, but several units are in the area in case they are needed.

Attempts to return

Upon the arrival of the Guardia Urbana to clear the square, the people who had settled there began to dismantle the tents They have already left the square. Municipal sources indicate that there have been "no incidents." As the police cleared them from the square, those affected moved a few meters further on, to a pedestrian street that provides access to the square, gathered together with all the belongings they had been able to collect there. However, a short time later the police warned them that they had to leave there as well. Around noon, those evicted began to disperse, but shortly afterward they regrouped in the square in front of the B9 building, where the police maintain a presence preventing them from occupying the entire space.

The Minister of Social Rights and Inclusion, Mònica Martínez Bravo, sent a letter on Thursday to the mayor of Badalona, ​​Xavier Garcia Albiol, requesting the immediate opening of the Can Bofí Vell shelter to accommodate those evicted from the B9 building. The City Council responded to the Catalan Government that this option was not viable because the building has "serious structural deficiencies" and stated that it was working with the Government to find a solution for those affected.