Clouds gathering again over Paiporta early Sunday morning did not bode well. At the entrance to the village, to the north, next to the industrial zone where the mud in places continues to reach up to their ankles, neighbors began to shout with two officers on horseback who forbade them to pass by the road main, forcing them to They circle the ships to return home, five days after DANA made this city the epicenter of the disaster. Resigned, avoiding potholes and cars, they continued their way alongside hundreds of volunteers who were walking from the other side of Valencia, crossing the bridge that crosses the Turia river, transformed into a mass of mud . Many did not understand why there was talk of restricting access to the city. “It will be because of the kings,” said some.
Others were already waiting for them at the first roundabout of this street, Carrer de València, next to the cordon prepared by the Royal House so that the press could record, photograph and report the arrival in the city of Felipe VI and Letizia, accompanied by the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, and that of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón. There were dozens, even a few hundred neighbors, mixed with volunteers from Valencia and other parts of the country. And then a small group in ultra outfits, some with their faces covered in panties, standing on the sidewalk at the intersection of Valencia Street and Mestre Palau. While the entourage waited, tempers grew heated. “They didn’t warn us!” These people had been saved! We don’t care about the equipment, but we’re closing the businesses! Expel Paiporta! A thousand people died in Mercadona,” said a woman with long black hair and eyes marked with fatigue that stuck out from the blue mask, like the one that many wore this Sunday in the streets of the city.
The Mercadona I was talking about, and which is no longer called that, is the Hiperber opened this year and is located about 50 meters from the roundabout, in the same rue de Valence. In the garage that this supermarket shared with neighbors in the same building, it is feared that people may have found themselves trapped. It was a matter of minutes.
So, within minutes, the tense wait for the arrival of the kings also turned into a powder keg of shouts, mud throwing, sticks and shoving.
The chaos began around one in the afternoon, as soon as Kings Sánchez and Mazón were walking the last part of Valencia Street, just before entering the roundabout. The ultra-aesthetic group, which had first thrown mud against the press line, tried to slide towards the procession, fighting against the civil guard who stopped them with their bare hands. Behind them came people armed with shovels, throwing screams and throwing mud.
– Out! Out!
– Liar ! Dog! Son of a bitch! We were sold!
The king’s bodyguards opened their umbrellas to protect him as he walked alongside the President of the Government and the President of the Generalitat. They all continued walking until, already at the roundabout, dozens of people, shouting, pushing and shoving, stopped their path. Moments later, Sánchez disappeared after sticks were thrown in his direction, an act claimed by a far-right Galaxy group. Mazón followed Felipe VI a little further, but after a while he also disappeared. The king advanced a few more meters, entering among the people, until he approached to speak to a group of young people who had gotten into cars still stuck between the plants that decorated the roundabout.
– Take a shovel!
– Murderers! Murderers! Why did you come?
The monarch tried to calm things down. A serious but firm gesture and an expression which, at times, suggested that he was not aware of what, in the meantime, was exploding around him. And the danger to which not only he, but also those who gathered in the square were exposed. The races that took place when the cordon of agents tried to keep the demonstration away were met with the remains of the destruction and slippery and treacherous terrain.
The security arrangement was far from what had been seen on other occasions during demonstrations and protests. Civil guards, municipal guards, National Police without riot gear or helmets… Some admitted that no one warned them that something like this could happen. The tumult took the officers by surprise, as if no one expected what was happening before their eyes. As if no one had calculated that, five days after the despair and deaths accumulated in the streets of Paiporta, a population out of breath, with broken souls and bodies bent with fatigue, could do anything other than receive the kings clapping and thanking the help of a Declaring that they feel they arrived late, at least, very late, the alarm sounded this Tuesday during which many lost everything.
– You don’t lack anything! Neither you nor your daughters!
While the king continued to try to approach the people, on the other side of the rotunda, a woman reprimanded the queen who placed her hands on her temples for a second. These were eternal moments. Then, his face smeared and stained with mud, he tried to regain his composure to continue talking to a neighbor whose hands he then took in his.
More than half an hour had passed since their appearance in Paiporta and the photo of the arrival of the highest state authorities was already a photo of rage, after days when the image had been that of rivers volunteers, people lying down in the street to row together.
“The evidence of solidarity that we have seen in the last hours and days, to respond to many concerns, needs and requests of the residents of the affected localities, is the message that must remain throughout society,” the President of the Government will say later, in the middle of the afternoon, during an appearance from the emergency center of the Generalitat Valenciana “Ultimately, what the majority of citizens want is a. solution, commitments from public institutions and, obviously, what they are doing is rejecting and marginalizing any type of violence that can be perpetrated like what we see today. But I want to say that the Spanish government will not deviate from its objective. main, which is to save lives, recover the bodies of the deceased and engage in the reconstruction of the province of Valencia and all areas of Spain that have been destroyed have been affected (…) We. let’s not deviate despite which can happen, despite some absolutely marginal violent people.”
“We must understand the anger and frustration of many people because of the seriousness of their situation, the difficulty of understanding how the mechanisms work and how to manage the emergency,” the king would later say. He had already left Paiporta in a black car, after walking up Valencia Street, stopping to talk again and again with the neighbors, between gestures of calm and impossible dialogues. “The king is going bareback, mom,” a daughter told her mother on her cell phone. And it was literal. The security cordon was overflowing.
Shortly before getting into the vehicle, a woman approached him and pleaded with him not to abandon them: “I’m begging you, we need help, please. » A volunteer who had been left on the side of the street, sitting on an abandoned chair on his shoulder, got up, approached him and reproached him for having interrupted the work of the people who had come to help him in his visit. “We have all been here for you for two hours,” he said. “I know, I know.” replied the king. Then the procession left and a few minutes later Valencia Street reopened to the passage of trucks and vehicles coming and going from the epicenter of this tragedy.
