Migrants sleeping in front of old Badalona high school return to site after being evicted

The migrants evicted from sleeping in the square outside the B9 high school in Badalona, just north of Barcelona, have returned to the square after being removed from the vicinity on Friday morning.

The group are waiting to find a new spot to settle down. However, the police are prohibiting them from setting up their tents.

Earlier on Friday, the group left the area when police were on the verge of forcefully evicting them. 

Hundreds of migrants were evicted from the former school building on Wednesday morning at the request of local courts. Around 400 migrants had been living in the site, but many had left in recent days.

Around 50 people have been sleeping in the square in front of the building since Wednesday in around 20 tents, preparing small fires to keep themselves warm.

On Wednesday, the agents arrived shortly before 7am, but the eviction only started after daylight broke. Some did so, but others gathered on the road leading to the site, refusing to leave, with some tense scenes of pushing and shoving seen.

On Friday morning, after a police cordon arrived to evict them again, the group began to dismantle their tents and leave the square voluntarily.

Some fifteen police officers in riot gear were deployed in the morning and set a 10am deadline for the group to voluntarily leave.

At that time, the police line advanced, but mediators from the Socialist Housing Union of Catalonia and Badalona Acull asked the officers for more time, which was granted.

About twenty tents with about fifty people had camped in a square in front of the old high school after the eviction on Wednesday. They have been sleeping on the ground for two nights.

The Minister for Social Rights and Inclusion, Mònica Martínez Bravo, sent a letter to the mayor of Badalona, ​​Xavier Garcia Albiol, on Thursday, asking him to immediately open the Can Bofí Vell hostel to accommodate those evicted from the site.

The city council replied that this option was not viable because the building has "serious structural deficiencies" and that it was working with the government to find a solution for the evicted group.