Gema Peñalosa Madrid

Madrid

Updated Sunday, January 28, 2024-00:03

  • Consequences 'Express' asylum to combat overcrowding

  • Severity The collapse extends to the common areas of the airport

The grotesque situation experienced at the

Barajas airport

with the overcrowding of asylum seekers has acquired overtones of indignity with a practice that had never had to be put into practice before.

Given the

impossibility of identifying the migrants

who are living poorly in the rooms of petitioners for international protection - they do not have documentation - the Police had no choice but to take them outside and

assign them a sign with a name

that will help them put order in the procedures. that are necessary.

This

unusual procedure

is added to the coexistence of these people with garbage next to their food, the overcrowding they suffer - they eat, sleep and wash in four rooms with only three bathrooms -, to the 'assault' on the public areas of the airport - the T4 serves as a stay for many of the migrants due to the lack of space - and the

confrontations

that have already begun to arise as a result of a situation that keeps the Ministry of the Interior overwhelmed and that has caused the abandonment of the Red Cross, which has stopped providing attendance.

The asylum seeker area of ​​the Barajas airport has become a microworld within the anarchy that has been installed for weeks.

The more than 400 people packed into this area of ​​the terminal have begun to function like any other society and the first failures have been noticeable. Groups have been formed that declare themselves enemies:

Senegalese against Moroccans

, as stated by airport sources familiar with this situation. The

"tensions and disputes"

aggravated, they say, by the "unhealthy" situation are putting the agents of the National Police to the test, who are completely overwhelmed.

The picaresque is gaining ground on the normative situation due to the inability of the police to assume the situation. When migrants make a stopover in Spain on regular flights bound for countries that do not require visas - such as Bolivia or Brazil, among others - they destroy their documentation and request asylum.

At that moment, they give a name to the Police. When the agents call them to initiate procedures or for an expulsion procedure when they verify that the countries from which they come are not immersed in a war conflict, they remain silent.

"They have learned not to step forward

," they point out. This week, several people have missed their repatriation flight due to the impossibility of identifying them. It is very difficult to know who is who because that would involve taking fingerprints and with more than 400 migrants,

there is no time or capacity

.

The situation reached its peak this Saturday, when it was necessary to transfer migrants outside the asylum request areas to try to bring order to the chaos. They were assigned a sign with the name they have given.

"It is a humiliating practice but there is no choice

," acknowledge the police sources consulted by this newspaper. The SUP union, which exposed the situation, has already filed a complaint with the Labor Inspection regarding the unhealthiness of the rooms.

Demands the occupational risk prevention service of the General Directorate of the Police to go to the airport to assess the situation.