Miguel Martín Alonso I Níjar (Almería), (EFE).- The backhoes have signed this Monday the end of the shantytown settlement of ‘El Walili’, in Níjar (Almería), gradually abandoned since Sunday by its residents, many of them which have made a population transfer to other towns by not accepting the solution of the City Council.
From very early in the morning the presence of the approximately 60 Civil Guard agents who have provided security for the eviction, supported by the Local Police, two teams of Firefighters… and a single social worker from the Nijareño City Council, the person in charge of deal directly with migrants.
Many of them were no longer there because they had moved to other settlements or, failing that, had slept in the houses of friends, relatives or even in spaces provided by their employers so that they did not have to stray too far from their workplace. .
The eviction has been relatively smooth. There has only been one outbreak of fire in one of the bands of the road that surrounds ‘El Walili’ around six in the morning, and another fire has been declared in a shack after eight.
In both cases, the Firefighters have acted quickly and, in the second of the fires, the City Council claims to have identified the perpetrators.
While all this was happening, women with children leaning on their suitcases, men who have had to ask their bosses for a day off… A melting pot of different nationalities waited without being able to access the shacks that until now were their homes due to the cordon of police officers. armed institute.
No alternative for many
In the town itself it has not been possible to see the local government, but not politicians such as Serigne Mbaye Diouf, deputy for United We Can in the Madrid Assembly and secretary of Anti-Racism and Diversity of his party, who has assured EFE that “the people He does not trust because the City Council has not complied with what he said (…) and because he does not have information”.
“A fire started that we don’t know where it came from and it is the perfect excuse to get people out (…) There were no buses and there were no social services (…) There has been no dialogue). Now the buses have arrived and they are trying to convince many to take them, but… Where? Under what conditions?” asks Mbaye Diouf.
The politician regrets that there are no residents of Níjar who want to rent homes to these people who “have no means” and need to live close to their jobs. Something confirmed by Hamal, an immigrant who seven years ago made ‘El Walili’ his home. “There are people here who have lived for 15 or 20 years,” he told EFE.
Hamal assures that despite the promises of the Consistory “there is nothing.” “They are sending people to a ship (…) They have no heart, people have not been able to collect their things,” says this North African, who also regrets that many have had to ask their bosses for permission and now “they have been able to lose control job they have.”
A town, almost a town
This is more or less what another Maghrebi who is near Hamal and who prefers not to say his name also affirms: “The City Council does not give me anything.”
Going into ‘El Walili’ in full demolition is to find the destruction of a town that is almost a town raised in an improvised way, with what was at hand at all times. No one would imagine the existence of a mosque or a hairdresser’s in such a place, but there they are.
Services for people ignored by almost everyone, and powered by motors or couplings such as those cut by Endesa in the settlement in six concrete towers, with fifteen illegal connections each.
A past still almost unfinished that is left behind and that causes grief. “I myself saw a lady leave her house crying, scared and insecure at six in the morning,” José Manuel Gómez Jurado, an Andalusian parliamentarian for Por Andalucía, told EFE.
“They don’t know exactly where they are going to take them. They are destroying their houses and they are here out in the open and being cold (…) They are telling them to get on a bus to take them to a bunk in a pavilion ”, he adds.
The houses of the settlement of “El Walili”
On a plot in the neighborhood of ‘Los Grillos’, a development of 62 affordable rental homes is being built to be used as temporary accommodation for seasonal workers, with a subsidy of 1,547,351 euros corresponding to the third call for the Program for Promotion of the Rental of the Junta de Andalucía.
They are not finished yet, so the first stop for the evicted in this neighborhood is the Emergency and Referral Reception Center. As they arrive there, they are cared for by Médicos del Mundo, the Red Cross, Almería Acoge, Fundación Cepaim and the Hermandas Mercedarias in a kind of “barracks” that precede their passage to the center, which has 300 bunk beds.
“It’s like a boarding school. I grew up in a boarding school and it’s like a boarding school”, assured the Nijareña mayor, Esperanza Pérez (PSOE), to Mbaye Diouf and Gómez Jurado, who have traveled to the place to be able to make an appointment with her and a visit after the facilities.
The councilor, who has declined to speak to the media, has indicated that they had food and supplies of all kinds, and that they will have constant supervision during the time they remain there, before being referred to one of the houses under construction or to another housing solution.
While all this is happening, the backhoes don’t stop working. They tear down the walls that once sheltered the desires and aspirations of people who left their countries to seek a better future. EFE