Overcrowding in Barajas asylum rooms worsens with 330 migrants detained

Two escapes in two consecutive weeks of more than twenty asylum seekers held at the Adolfo Suarez-Madrid Barajas airport have revealed that the “overcrowding” situation they are experiencing has not only not improved but has worsened. The conditions in which 330 men, women and children are found – this Monday – and the four police officers who until now were in charge of their custody in shifts, are “dignified” and “desperate”, as denounced by the Unified Police Union ( SUP), majority in the body. “At dawn on Twelfth Night, nine people escaped by breaking a false ceiling; and this Saturday, at dawn, 17 left, breaking a window,” say sources close to the police investigation opened after the escape of those 26 immigrants from the inadmissible room number 4 of the Madrid airport, located in Terminal 4. Only one, who was injured in the escape, was detained by the agents when he was running on the slopes this Saturday. Of the rest, there is no trace, according to sources close to the investigation.

Interior assures that given “the specific increase in applications, in recent weeks two new offices have been set up to conduct interviews, a third room has been opened to serve applicants and the number of National Police personnel has been increased and of staff of the Asylum and Return Office.”

However, this situation is neither new nor “specific” since, at the end of December, the heads of the Investigative Courts 6, 19 and 20 of Madrid, with powers over the judicial control of the Inadmissibility Rooms at the Adolfo Suárez airport in Madrid-Barajas, required the Ministry of the Interior and the National Police to adopt “urgently” measures to put an end to the “overcrowding” suffered by the 150 applicants for international protection – among which there were 19 minors – who remained detained in different rooms of the Madrid airfield while their legal situation was resolved.

The now escapees, all men, are “almost all North Africans,” according to police sources. “They had been waiting an average of a month for their applications to be resolved, because they get rid of their documentation when they set foot on Spanish soil and then their countries do not recognize them as citizens and they cannot be returned,” the same sources explain.

The continuous arrival of asylum seekers and the shortage of material and human resources, denounced by both the police and judges, has led to a worsening of overcrowding in recent weeks. This Monday there were 42 women and children in the so-called “room 2,” located in Terminal 2, the “third room” referred to by Interior. “They are on inflatable mattresses, in a room without ventilation or windows, with only one bathroom and no showers,” police sources say. “Diapers and food gather in the same place and cockroaches and bedbugs roam free,” they point out.

No cleaning or hygiene

The cleaning – carried out by the Red Cross along with the assistance, according to police sources – is not carried out “because the entity has subcontracted it to another cleaning company, which has assured that it does not enter the room until it is fumigated,” they detail. agents present at the scene. For their part, the Red Cross says that “they are not making statements on the matter,” that their work “is psychosocial,” but they do not clarify whether that includes cleaning the places where these asylum seekers are housed: “No. I could tell you,” responds a spokesperson for the NGO.

In the other two rooms, with capacity for 50 people on average, there were 166 people this Monday, in the one in Terminal 4 (room 4), from which 17 people escaped this Saturday and the other nine on Epiphany Friday. And 92 people, in room 3, located in Terminal 1. “It is impossible for four agents to guard three rooms separated by these distances, in different terminals, in which people are not detained, but rather their capacity is limited. ambulation,” explain police sources, who acknowledge that as a result of the second escape “they have sent some reinforcements and more personnel from the Asylum department to process requests, but they are equally overwhelmed,” they say.

“Mixing women and men”

Furthermore, according to the same sources, this Monday another 30 people entered, “who have already been distributed among the three rooms, mixing women and men,” they say. In total, this Monday there were 330 people waiting for their administrative situation to be resolved, “some may be waiting up to a month,” warn police sources, who point out that “power groups are also being formed among those detained, for example.” nationalities”, which can give rise to conflicts that are difficult to control.

Already at the end of December, the magistrates considered that the conditions in which the detainees were found, “sleeping on mattresses on the floor, without conditions of health, hygiene and privacy,” violated their rights. And then, the Interior announced that it was going to create more space at the airport for the arrival of migrants. This Monday, the window through which the 17 foreigners escaped on Saturday was still broken, “because it is up to AENA to fix the infrastructure,” police sources say.

According to the Interior, “The Provincial Immigration and Border Brigade of the National Police and the Office of Asylum and Refuge (OAR) of the Ministry of the Interior continue to respond to requests for international protection received at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid Barajas Airport, adapting their resources human and material resources on demand to process requests as quickly as possible.” According to the SUP, the majority of escapees come from African countries such as Kenya, Senegal and now especially Morocco, since when transiting through the capital they take the opportunity to request international protection.

The police union insists on denouncing the “collapse”, the situation of “overcrowding and unhealthiness” of those rooms, “prepared to accommodate about 40-50 people and where lately there are more than 150,” they warn. Images of the place, provided by the police, show cockroaches and bedbugs in the showers and bathrooms. In addition, they point out that “the facilities are completely deficient in terms of security measures, “with windows that can break, as happened on Saturday, or false ceilings that cannot be fixed and through which they escaped on Twelfth Night. ”.

The SUP has sent a letter to the Ombudsman: “The overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in the inadmissible rooms, especially in rooms 3 and 4, have reached a critical point of overcrowding due to an increase in requests for international protection.” , they say in their complaint addressed to Ángel Gabilondo. “The negligence of AENA and the Red Cross, responsible for providing assistance and maintaining the cleanliness of the asylum seekers, aggravates the situation,” they point out. And, among other things, they request: “The adequate conditioning of Rooms 2, 3 and 4 with adequate cleaning; security measures to guarantee the physical integrity of police officers and asylum seekers to prevent escapes and brawls between them; as well as enough beds and showers to accommodate people during the time they remain hospitalized and their administrative situations are resolved.”

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