The Sahrawi activists detained for several weeks at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport have begun a hunger strike to denounce the “unhealthy” conditions in which they find themselves and to ask the Spanish government to fulfill its “duty” of political asylum and grant them freedom.
The lawyer for some of the activists who started the strike, Fatima Fadelclarified this Sunday that the protest began yesterday, Saturday, and that it is supported by 29 people out of the “more than 30” who are at Barajas airport. They are all men distributed between terminals 1 and 4.
On Saturday, September 21, around twenty demonstrators, including many relatives of the 30 Sahrawi activists detained in Barajas, demonstrated in front of the organization’s headquarters. Ministry of the Interior his freedom and the granting of asylum in Spainand denounced the “inhumane” conditions in which, according to them, they live today, as they confirmed to EFE Agency.
These people said they were “Political prisoners” persecuted by Morocco for his activist work. Lawyer Fadel assures that the situation is “extremely serious.”
“There are bedbugs, we see their bodies with traces of bites. They complain about eating the same food for 20 days,” he emphasizes. In addition, he adds, the hygienic situation of these detained Sahrawis is terrible, now added to the hunger strike… “They don’t see the sun, They are practically prisoners, these conditions are those of a prison.” he said.
At the same time, the lawyer pointed out that there were “seven people” out of the 30 detainees who had flights scheduled to leave Spain for Morocco, to cities such as Casablanca or Rabat, which would cause, she predicted, their imprisonment for his activist work. “The evidence or the story they are reporting is not being evaluated,” the lawyer lamented.
This is not the first time this has happened at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport. In 2017, more than 40 Sahrawis also went on hunger strike in the room for those banned from entering the territory and seeking asylum to convey a request for “urgent rescue” and not to be expelled.
