The neighborhood is humble, once troubled (there are still traces of the turmoil caused by drugs). Los Rosales. Behind its now unused prison, dozens of workers wearing yellow vests place metal poles on which a settlement for immigrants will be erected. Just ten steps away, the new daycare center stands, which on September 28 was going to unify the students from two others: Nuestra Señora de África and Juan Carlos I. More than 170 boys and girls playing just a few meters from a camp. “And they are going to be outside, next to my daughter. I don’t want that.”
His name is Neuer Mohammed, he is 26 years old and has two children. The little one, Emira, is not yet three years old. She hides her brown curls in her mother’s neck, covered with a hijab. “Many parents don’t feel safe when they go to work. There have been altercations and this is going to happen here too, we are seeing it,” she says.
She is one of the mothers who, since yesterday, has been protesting alongside neighbors and teachers on the three-thousand-square-meter esplanade to stop the installation. “We have tried to stop it by all means and we won’t be able to avoid it.”
Last night, the turnout was not as expected. Barely about twenty neighbors endured the night hours outdoors. “Look, there are no streetlights here, nothing,” points out Nawal, 42. She lives in the adjacent buildings, which border the Loma Colmenar neighborhood, where immigrants sleep outdoors or wander aimlessly during the days.
This morning, there were few mothers left watching the scene. “I’ll just tell you one thing, if something happens to my daughter, I will defend myself,” says Noelia. The ponytails of Jimena, her daughter, sway every time the girl bends down to touch the gravel on the esplanade. “I can’t take her to another daycare because the other two have already been evacuated.”
“The problem is not the settlement, they have done that in all locations. The problem is that here they tell you that 1,500 or 2,000 fit and many are left outside, circling around. Those outside will live uncontrolled,” predicts this neighbor.
The feeling of lack of control is shared by all the neighbors. No one has informed them about the operation. The only clue is the row of military trucks unloading material next to the two excavators. Government sources assure that the maneuver is not the work of the central government, while the regional government states that it is not a youth center and therefore falls outside their competencies.
Although they do not know which people will be relocated to this site, the neighbors suspect it will be adult men who sleep on the street, since women and girls already have centers like La Hípica.
Moreover, every incident that makes headlines increases their anxiety. There are quite a few underage immigrants who have suffered sexual assaults. “Who tells me he can’t lose his mind and grab my daughter,” expresses Noelia. As she sees it, there is only one solution left: to leave. “My husband told me to leave, but why do I have to leave my city so they can put these people here?”.
