Spanish police evict hundreds of mostly illegal migrants living in a squat

Police in Spain on Wednesday evicted hundreds of migrants from an abandoned school building in the city of Badalona that borders Barcelona in the north-east.

Many of the undocumented occupants left the squat early in the morning, before the arrival of police in riot gear, in a bid to find other shelter.

Judicial authorities had ruled the building was unsafe.

While the eviction was completed without violence, there were moments of tension when people who were losing their homes had to walk past armoured officers.

Senegalese citizen, Younous Drame, who was among those forced to leave said they had been hoping to be allowed to stay in the building at least until after Christmas or when the cold weather had passed.

“It seems heartless to evict 400 people in the middle of winter. This person must have a very hard heart to do that," he said.

Many migrants, mostly from Senegal and Gambia, had moved into the empty school building since it was left abandoned in 2023.

It was cleared under orders from the city’s conservative mayor whose more hardline views on immigration clash with those of the leftist government.