Pensioner, 87, evicted from her home of 71 years as thousands line the street in protest
The city of Madrid is behind María del Carmen 'Maricarmen' Abascal.
At 87 years old, the Spanish native was controversially removed from her apartment in Retiro this week - the place she'd called home since 1956 - resulting in a mass protest on the streets.
As for why Abascal was thrown out of the property, it's all thanks to real estate company Urbagestion increasing her rent after it acquired the building.
Per El Pais, she used to pay €500 (£430.41) per month, but the building's owners increased it fivefold to €2,650 (£2,281). Mercifully, this was eventually lowered to €1,650 (£1,420).
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Because the elderly tenant's monthly pension came to €1,350 (£1,162) though, even the smaller rent rate proved too overwhelming.
"I've lived here for 71 years, and I don't want to leave," she told reporters the night before her eviction.
But the story behind Abascal's ongoing battle with Urbagestion isn't so black and white.
When her family first got its hands on the Madrid flat - Abascal being 17 at the time - her father put pen to paper on an old-fashioned regulated tenancy agreement.
Following her parents' deaths and the bricks and mortar acquisition by Urbagestion, the pensioner began paying rent to the private landlord in 2018, yet the company was not happy with the contract.
Urbagestion claimed that Abascal's retention of the home was invalid, leading to a Supreme Court case that ruled against her in March of this year.
Beatriz Duro, the attorney of Abascal, said a court filing to suspend her client's eviction was pending ahead of her eviction on Wednesday, 23 September, although Urbagestion's representatives reportedly refused to pause the operation.
Ultimately, Abascal was notified on the same day as her eviction that she'd have just 30 minutes to pack up and sling her hook.
While approximately 10,000 protestors campaigning against Spain's housing crisis populated the scene - some being forcibly removed by police from the main doorway - the 87-year-old was carried out of the apartment building via stretcher and then placed into an ambulance that drove her out of the neighbourhood.
"Maricarmen, you're not alone!", "Murderers!" and "Shame on you!" went three of the protestor chants as this all unfolded.
The Madrid City Council and Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida went on to claim that the governmental body and municipal services offered Abascal alternatives before her eviction. She allegedly rejected all offers, including accommodation in a residential facility. Instead, she'll be moving in with some relatives.
Meanwhile, Abascal's plight even made it all the way to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, with Spain's prime minister Pedro Sánchez labelling her situation a 'social tragedy that we cannot accept as a country'.
Over in the country's Congress of Deputies, housing minister Isabel Rodríguez García argued this particular eviction 'evidences the consequences of savage speculation and of rolling out the red carpet to the vultures and the speculators'.
This week's impassioned protest in Madrid was the nucleus of a larger campaign throughout Spain; the platform #Niundesahuciomás (Not One More Eviction) has initiated simultaneous gatherings in Ávila, Barcelona, Cádiz, Oviedo, Sevilla and Valencia.
Dan Seddon