A good article from the Voice of America website!?
Protest groups in Spain have helped families that were kicked out of their homes by banks find shelter in repossessed, empty apartment buildings. Police moved in quickly in most cases, but in Seville about 30 families are going on six months of illegal occupation.
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Dec. 1st, 2007
It took teams of policemen and fire-fighters nearly 38 hours to remove two squatters from an underground refuge at the end of a tunnel underneath the Casas Viejas building in the Macarena district close to Sevilla city centre that has been earmarked for conversion into residential properties and a community centre.
Iván Díaz, a 28 year old geography lecturer at Sevilla university, lasted 36 hours, but was finally removed at 7.30pm yesterday evening. His fellow protester, Agustín, who is a builder and carpenter, held out for an an extra hour and a half.
The two men had taken refuge in a small cave at the end of a tunnel built over the last twelve months to resist eviction, and had padlocked themselves to concrete blocks in the wall behind an armour-plated door.
A similar siege in London a few years ago was brought to an end after police decided to dig an alternative tunnel, which took several days.
