00:00We move on to Spain where activists mourned the death of Marie Carmen, an 87-year-old woman evicted from
00:09her home in Madrid, who became a symbol of the struggle for the right to housing. Andres Flores has the
00:17details from Barcelona.
00:23We are in Barcelona, at the encampment that has been the meeting place for housing activism, and today, of course,
00:30with the sad news of Marie Carmen's death.
00:33Some repercussions and reactions have also been voiced here.
00:38We spoke with many of the people who are here today, and they told us that they do not view
00:42what happened to Marie Carmen as simply a death, as simply a passing, but rather as murder.
00:49She was a victim of Spain's rentier system, which is not only prevalent in Barcelona, not only in Madrid, but
00:55throughout the country.
00:57Here, at this encampment, they have also expressed the need, based on what happened, to deepen the measures of struggle
01:03even further.
01:04The general strike has already been called, but they also insist on the need to organize from the grassroots, as
01:10they have been doing through the Tenants' Union and through assemblies.
01:13Tomorrow, there will also be assemblies at this point to define how the struggle continues, precisely from the grassroots.
01:21Let us recall that Marie Carmen's eviction was truly brutal.
01:27She had lived in her home for 71 years until this investment fund, Urbaguestion, decided to evict her without negotiating
01:35or talking to find a solution, and that simply came too late, when she had already been evicted.
01:42They had given her just a few minutes, 30 minutes, to gather her belongings, an 87-year-old woman in
01:49a wheelchair, with a 50% disability.
01:52She had to be carried out on a stretcher during that eviction, and the Tenants' Union described that eviction process
01:59and the prior process as a torture, what Marie Carmen had to endure.
02:03And that kind of conduct on the part of the authorities, on the part of power, on the part of
02:08these big companies, these vulture funds, these investment funds, is what also affected Marie Carmen's health, and how it deteriorated
02:15in recent times, until she died here in Spain, in Madrid, where she passed away at the Gregorio Marañon Hospital.
02:22Truly very sad news that has filled the whole of society with rage and indignation, and especially here, the activism
02:29at the housing encampment.
02:31We will, of course, follow it very closely. Over to you from Caracas.
02:35A nosotros, por supuesto, lo seguiremos muy de cerca. Adelante ustedes, desde Caracas.
