Man’s death during raid on apartment sparks protests by more than 100 migrants in seaside resort

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

More than a dozen people have been arrested after migrants and police clashed in the Spanish seaside resort of Salou in protests sparked by the death of a Senegalese man during a police raid.



Catalan regional police said a 50-year-old man from Senegal died on Tuesday after police entered an apartment as part of an operation to crack down on the sale of fake DVDs and other counterfeit goods.

As police made their way through the apartment, the man jumped to his death from a third-floor balcony.

Police had been looking to arrest the man as part of a dawn raid on the homes of three people suspected of selling fake merchandise, said Xavier Gámez, a police spokesman. No words were exchanged between the man and the officers and there was no altercation, he added.

The man’s death unleashed protests by more than 100 migrants in Salou, which lies south of Barcelona, with some hurling rocks at police officers and blocking railway lines with rubbish bins. Others carried signs calling the Catalan police “savages” and blaming them for the man’s death.

Police responded by firing blanks and foam projectiles to disperse the crowds.

At least 16 people were reportedly injured in the clashes, including 10 police officers. The protests spilled over into the centre of the resort town at the peak of the tourist season, with one tourist reportedly injured.

The police raid was part of a wider campaign by the authorities to tackle the sale of fake goods and counterfeit designer items, often sold by migrants on the streets of Spain.

On Tuesday, Jaume Asens, a Barcelona en Comú politician, expressed his condolences over the death of the man, describing him on Twitter as “the first victim of the criminalisation of the poor this summer”.

Asens later clarified that he wasn’t taking aim at police, but instead seeking to highlight how society had turned its back on the issues facing these migrants. “Police are simply obeying the orders of a society that doesn’t want to tackle problems like these,” he said. “We’ve learned to live alongside barbarity.”