A new demonstrationthe third since the floods that at the end of October caused at least 223 deaths in Valencia, thousands of people affected and million-dollar losses in the province, has brought together thousands of Valencians in the center of the capital coinciding with the day on which It’s been two months since DANA.
The protest, which has concentrated around 80,000 peopleaccording to data from the Government Delegation, and has changed its route due to street closures for Christmas, it began in the Plaza de San Agustín led by seven tractors, which received applause upon their arrival.
The march has been called by about sixty civic, social and left-wing organizations with the support of more than 150 entities to request the resignation of the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, due to the management of DANA on October 29.
With this third march – the previous ones were on November 9, which brought together 130,000 people, and on November 30, with almost 100,000, according to the Government Delegation – the organizers seek, according to the organizers, truth, justice and reparation and respond to “inactivity, lack of responsibility and disastrous management” of the Valencian Government in the face of the catastrophe, for which three missing people are still being searched 61 days after the tragedy.
Minutes before the start, the spokespersons for the entities have accused Mazón of “deny the evidence” and only being interested in putting an “end to a very difficult situation”, with more than 220 deaths and in which “people have lost their homes and their businesses.”
Likewise, they have highlighted that this Christmas “There have been 226 empty chairs in the houses” of the 223 people who died and the three who disappeared, and have assured that Valencian society will not forget them and will not rest until the person most responsible for those deaths resigns and is taken to prison.
Seven tractors led the rally as a tribute to the farmers, who have collaborated in cleaning up many affected municipalities, and as a symbol of the tireless work of the people who have helped rebuild what was lost. “in the face of the abandonment of institutions.”
Behind them were the protesters and the slogan that has been repeated in the three demonstrations, ‘Mazón resigned’, on posters with his image upside down and a black ribbon, and also on the figure of a cardboard president with his hands stained with blood, to demand the purging of responsibilities for the management “before, during and after” of DANA, considering that the Valencian Government was not at the service of citizens but rather “the personal and political interests of the president and business profits.”
At the head of the protest were two relatives of victims of the dana, Saray, a resident of Montserrat and daughter of one of the victims not yet located, and Aitana, from Catarroja, granddaughter of a deceased, who has demanded justice and regretted that The Consell “has not assumed any responsibility, neither for what they did nor for what they did not do”, and has assured that the Valencian Government They have not contacted the family “at all.”
Other affected people who have participated, residents of Alfafar, have recalled that They swam out of their house on the ground floor and they never thought that something like this could happen in “the twilight of their life” (ages 88 and 76).
The affected population still does not have its needs covered and still remains without supplies and without a home; In addition, there are flooded garages that endanger the structure of the buildings, thousands of elevators do not work and there may be diseases in the destroyed areas, according to reports.
Likewise, they add that there are “endless” queues and cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, a situation that is aggravated by “the militarization” of the Valencian Government, “propaganda to cover up its negligence and the awarding of million-dollar contracts to companies convicted in cases of corruption”, and they assure that two months after the serious floods “the inability and inefficiency” of the Consell to manage any type of crisis.
The demonstration coincided as it passed through the commercial streets of the center of Valencia, such as Colón Street, with the influx of people who dedicated the afternoon to do Christmas shopping.
Those attending the march have taken the opportunity to adapt a carol to the scenario of mud and mud that they have experienced, as well as by the organizers themselves to create ‘the Nadala of the DANA’, which speaks of sadness, abandonment, lack of help and indignation and has been sung by Dani Miquel and Rafa Xambó at the end of the tour in Plaza América.
In this place, they have read a manifesto in which they ask for the ex officio initiation of the judicial procedure to clarify the responsibilities for “the avoidable consequences of the catastrophe”that housing alternatives be offered, public transportation be reinforced, construction in flood-prone areas and the coastline is prohibited, the forgiveness of “illegitimate” debt and that workers in ERTE by DANA receive one hundred percent of the regulatory base.
At exactly 8:11 p.m. they sounded the Es-Alert alarm that reached citizens’ cell phones at that same time on October 29, when the floods They had already devastated the territory.
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