Arabic version: احتجاج في مدريد عقب إخلاء مستأجرة تبلغ 87 عاماً

According to ABC News, tens of thousands of people protested in Madrid on Saturday over Spain’s housing crisis, following the eviction of 87-year-old María del Carmen Abascal from the apartment where she had lived for decades. Demonstrators called for stronger tenant protections, anti-fraud rules and an end to evictions without alternative housing.

Abascal was removed from her home on a stretcher in Madrid’s upscale Retiro neighbourhood on Wednesday and taken by ambulance. Spanish media reported that her father first rented the property in 1956 and that she remained the tenant after her parents died, during a period when the rent was capped.

The building changed ownership in 2018. The Madrid Tenants’ Union, which organised the protest, said Abascal was offered the chance to buy the apartment but could not afford it. Urbagestión, an investment fund that later bought the unit, raised her monthly rent from 500 euros ($810) to 2,650 euros ($4290), before reducing it to 1,650 euros ($2670), still beyond what she could pay on her pension. Courts had blocked three earlier eviction attempts.

Protester Dora Garcia, a 55-year-old nurse, said housing had become a problem affecting people across society. Another demonstrator, teacher Simón de la Riva, said Abascal’s case had become a last straw for unrest over housing costs, evictions and investment funds buying homes.

At the end of the march, some protesters sat down in Puerta del Sol plaza and pitched tents, planning to remain at least overnight or until police removed them. The Bank of Spain estimated a shortage of about 550,000 homes last year, with Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia accounting for a substantial share. Public rental housing represents less than 2 per cent of Spain’s available supply, compared with an EU average of 8 per cent.