Maricarmen Abascal was 87 years old and had lived in the same house in Madrid’s Retiro neighborhood for about 70 years.
On September 23, they took her out of there on a stretcher. Dozens of activists were protesting at the door. She ended up at Gregorio Marañón Hospital, and she never returned home from that hospital.
She died on October 7, fourteen days later. The Tenants’ Union announced the news.
Then came the words. MEP Irene Montero wrote: “It’s not a death, it’s a murder. What a damned rage. Thank you for fighting, Mari Carmen”. Ione Belarra repeated them. Izquierda Unida leader Enrique Santiago described the eviction as “avoidable and without any alternative housing”. And at Puerta del Sol, the people camped out there set off toward Congress, chanting “These aren’t deaths, they’re murders”.
It is fair to say what is not yet known. No medical information or court ruling confirms that the eviction caused her death. The words express the anger of the streets, not a verdict.
But that anger did not come out of nowhere. It came from an image: an 87-year-old woman being carried out of her home on a stretcher.
Sometimes a country does not argue about a death. It argues about how it came to happen.
