Gema Peñalosa Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, January 29, 2024-02:34

  • Consequences Fights, 'signing' of migrants and roguery

  • Immigration Overcrowding overflows the Barajas asylum rooms and the common areas of the airport are filled with immigrants

Yesterday and Saturday night were once again dramatic at the

Barajas

airport , both due to the unaffordable number of migrants crammed into the asylum rooms and common areas and due to the fights that are taking place.

The lack of control and disagreements between different groups forced a subgroup of agents from the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIP) - the riot police -

to move

to the terminal to prevent the situation from escalating, as revealed by police sources.

In the last few hours, the airport transit area - specifically T4 satellite - has already welcomed more than

100 asylum seekers

, who have turned this public area into their resting place, forcing the Police to cut off the rest of the people. travelers to respect the area that the migrants have occupied.

All of them are

visible to the rest of the

arriving travelers, since they are on the way to baggage collection.

"It is an inhuman and quite regrettable image

," say eyewitnesses.

The

four flights

from

Casablanca

that landed yesterday in Barajas - considered

hot flights

- further complicated the situation. The agents estimate that nearly

200 people joined

the more than 400 migrants requesting international protection crammed into the airport for two weeks.

Of particular concern are the differences between groups of Senegalese and Moroccans given the virulence with which they try to resolve their differences in the terminal.

The Police have already had to

intervene in several disputes

, mostly over control of the territory, as revealed by airport sources consulted by this newspaper. The last two nights, more than a hundred people have had to sleep on cardboard on the ground in the T4 transit area. The four rooms set up for petitioners for international protection are completely collapsed.

The issue of cleaning continues to be a

pending issue

, because since the

Ministry of the Interior

took charge of the service - forced by the abrupt departure of the

Red Cross -, the

accumulated garbage

bags

are deposited next to the boxes of food that are later serves migrants.

It is only cleaned

once a day

. As this newspaper already reported in its Sunday edition, coexistence has worsened with the formation of groups of Senegalese against Moroccans.

Who occupies a certain section of the hallway to spend the night or spend the day is another focus of confrontation due to the lack of space in common areas. 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.

Given the impossibility of identifying the migrants who are living poorly in the rooms of international protection petitioners - they do not have documentation because, according to the Police suspect, they tear it during the flight to Spain - the agents had no choice but to take them outside and assign them a sign with a name that will help them put order in the necessary procedures.

The collapse has also forced them to grant, they denounce, approvals for asylum procedures “automatically” and without the usual filters. They report that on the day, 40 people achieve this free path.

The

Jupol

union demands that the Madrid Higher Headquarters summon the representatives of the police groups.

The group considers that it is "essential" that they explain the measures that are going to be taken. For this reason, it has requested the

Madrid Higher Headquarters

to convene the unions to discuss "measures and guidelines" that are being carried out.

He wants to know the "work situation" in which the agents "provide service" and warns that, given the avalanche of people who have to be attended to, the majority of agents who guard are in training.