94-Year-Old Cuban Woman Evicted in Madrid Over 12,000 Euro Debt

A 94-year-old Cuban woman was evicted from the apartment where she had lived for almost four decades in Madrid due to a debt of nearly 12,000 euros. Alba Marina Milagros López, originally from Santa Clara, is a self-taught architect and painter. She arrived in Spain in 1985 and soon settled in a 60-square-meter flat in the Lavapiés neighborhood, where she was removed on a stretcher this Wednesday.

At 55, she couldn't revalidate her university degree, so she took up various jobs, including designing and selling Christmas cards to make ends meet. The building is owned by the real estate company GUIGA SL, which took her to court for accumulating a debt close to 12,000 euros after almost two years without paying rent. She claims to have only a non-contributory pension of 517 euros, while the rent is 650 euros per month.

Health and Legal Struggles

The elderly woman was unaware that she had to leave that day; her relatives hid it from her to avoid worsening her health condition, as she suffers from chronic bronchitis that has led to two hospitalizations this year. The eviction was carried out this morning with a significant police presence, which even prevented her neighbors from entering to help her move and say goodbye. These are the same neighbors who, on June 7, had stopped an earlier eviction attempt (the second) on her.

Marina was taken to the street strapped to a chair pushed by a Samur Social worker. The officers placed a safety belt over her chest to immobilize her arms and prevent her from getting hurt during the struggle. Once outside, two men lifted her onto a stretcher and put her in an ambulance.

According to her nephew, Alejandro López, the only relative allowed to enter the home with the judicial commission, his aunt resisted with all her might. "There were more than six police officers inside the apartment. They got very aggressive with her, and she was desperate, couldn't believe it, she was yelling that they had to kill her inside. They took us out so there wouldn't be any witnesses to how they were treating her," he recounted.

The woman couldn't pack her belongings or say goodbye to her neighbors. Only two friends were allowed to enter afterward and collected her clothes and paintings. Everything else remained inside the apartment.

Marina is now in a nursing home. In a message she sent via her cell phone to a friend, she shared: "I am very upset, in the end, I had to give in. They would have taken me out by force. Now in the residence, the first and only good thing was the shower. The food is terrible. Watching four elderly women in the dining room, sitting and waiting to be served."