Spain: Racist attacks in El Ejido
01 January 2000
On 5 February a 20-year-old woman in El Ejido, Almeria, died of stab wounds after trying to prevent a robbery by a young mentally-ill North African man, who was detained at the scene. The incident gave rise to several days of violent racist attacks by hundreds of local people against immigrant people living and working in the area. El Ejido has a population of 55,000, including 15,000 immigrants who are facing organised and racist violence. Many immigrants have been beaten up, their cars destroyed and their houses and shacks burnt down. Migrant organisations were also attacked by the racists: the headquarters of Progressive Women and Almeria Welcomes have been ransacked, their files thrown into the gutter and set alight, and their activists confined to their houses for fear of street violence. The police have advised them that their safety cannot be guaranteed.
The police have been criticised for their lack of action. In the first two days of violence they did little to prevent the attacks and made not one arrest, despite the fact that one of the first to be injured was an official of the provincial government, attacked while attending the young woman's funeral. Evidence has emerged of the involvement in these incidents of organised far-right groups. After three days of violence the immigrant community declared a strike, from 9 February, demanding security for themselves, the arrest of those responsible for the attacks, and compensation for those whose cars, houses and businesses had been destroyed. The police, on the same day, arrested dozens of immigrants said to be enforcing their strike by unlawful picketing.
Moroccans form the largest community of non-EU aliens resident in Spain, with 111,100 registered in 1997. According to the Preliminary Report of the UN on Migration, Spain currently needs an average of 240,000 additional immigrants per year if it is to maintain the balance of its adult population (meaning four economically active people per pensioner). Spain currently has the lowest reproductive rate of any country in the world, with just 1.07 children per woman of childbearing age. At the same time, the farming and construction industries require one million legal immigrants to meet their needs over the next three years. Despite all this, the quota approved by government for 1999 was 30,000 immigrants, as against 94,819 applications received.