Susana Vera / Reuters
Covadonga Jimenez hangs out clothes as Angel Duval (R) cleans debris from what used to be his bedroom after an excavator demolished it at Puerta del Hierro neighborhood outside Madrid November 8, 2011. Some Spanish gypsy families settled in the area of Puerta de Hierro, near the Palace of Moncloa, in the 1960s and have built brick houses and raised their children and grandchildren there ever since. The settlers are registered with the town hall and have access to public services, but for the past year and a half have been subject to several evictions under Madrid’s town planning board orders, on the grounds that the dwellings are illegal. The members of the families have been relocated to rental flats in the city and some have been told that they have no right to relocation, and others have refused to go to the rental flats assigned because they do not want to leave their children and grandchildren homeless. Out of more than 50 homes that used to stand in the neighborhood there are a mere dozen left, as well as the debris of the ones already demolished.Emphasis mine.
This just makes me cry. ;_;
