Lepe (Spain) (AFP)

Lamine Diakité has been sleeping outside for two weeks since his slum burned down in southern Spain. Like him, hundreds of seasonal agricultural migrants, most of them undocumented, are left to their fate in the midst of the pandemic rebound.

"Our huts were burned down, more than 200 of us found ourselves in the streets and we received no emergency aid", which "in the midst of a pandemic presents a risk for us and for the population", summarizes this 32-year-old Malian.

To protest and demand a roof, Lamine and other seasonal workers from sub-Saharan Africa sleep in the town hall square in Lepe, a small Andalusian town known for its strawberries.

The hands of these mostly illegal migrants, who arrived from Africa on wealthy boats, are precious in Spain, a country that supplies the whole of Europe with fruit and vegetables.

But in Lepe, they live in slums without electricity or running water, which they make with plastic, pallets or mattresses or sell among themselves for 250 euros.

- No tests -

Despite these unhealthy living conditions, where social distancing is impossible to respect, no coronavirus test was done to them, according to testimonies from migrants confirmed by the town hall of Lepe.

And yet, some of them left to work in other regions such as Lérida in Catalonia where seasonal workers were at the center of a source of contagion which led to the confinement until Wednesday of this area.

A situation that worries the authorities. "It is very possible that we still have outbreaks linked to seasonal workers," the chief epidemiologist of the health ministry, Fernando Simon, said on Monday.

So far, only the region of La Rioja (north) has decided to test all seasonal workers with or without a work contract.

- Flaming slums -

In mid-July, when the red berry season had just ended, three slums, including that of Lamine, burned down in Lepe for reasons still unknown.

At the door of one of them, now padlocked, you can still see clothes or towels on the floor and boxes of flu medicine. "It was a horrible night," remembers Ismaila Fall, a thirty-something Senegalese who believes the fire was arson.

But the state and local communities are relying on each other when it comes to trying to find a solution.

"It is a problem which falls under the State, not of the town hall, we cannot regularize them", launches Manuel Mora, mayor of Lucena del Puerto, locality close to Lepe where another shanty town caught fire.

"We have to do PCR tests before they come to the farms, but PCRs have a significant cost for farmers. The government must act" to help them, insists Juan José Álvarez Alcalde, general manager of the association representing Asaja farmers.

In the region of Lepe, seasonal workers have been living in shanty towns at harvest time since the 1980s. Recently, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty Olivier De Schutter called on the authorities to "put an end to this degrading situation ".

The town hall has proposed an industrial zone for the army to set up a temporary camp there but the military refused this week because the stifling heat would not have allowed the migrants to live there, according to a government source.

"We need to have a housing network in all the agricultural municipalities" in the area, but this must go through an agreement between all the players, insists Jesús Toronjo, number two of the town hall of Lepe.

However, on the ground, the reality is more power struggles between municipalities, or even between NGOs.

"Everyone is passing the buck," Judge Antonio Abad, president of the migrant aid NGO Asisti.

"The problem is the lack of political will" because "migrants do not vote", he regrets.

© 2020 AFP