Date Published: 27/05/2020
ARCHIVED - Police to press manslaughter charges after electrocuted body of migrant worker found in Lorca
ARCHIVED ARTICLE The man was found to have been working illegally in Spain
The topic of illegal immigration in Spain and the exploitation of illegal migrants was highlighted in a press release from the Guardia Civíl on Wednesday, relating to the discovery of a corpse in an outlying district of the vast Lorca municipality, Cazalla a year ago.
The vast and complex story of illegal immigration in Spain is a topic which is rarely reported with any compassion within the country as the sad truth behind the reality is that illegal migrants arriving in tiny boats from the African continent are unwanted by the Spanish authorities and unwanted by the residents of coastal regions, who are uncomfortable at the frequent sight of illegal immigrants begging, working as unwanted car parking attendants in public streets and selling fake branded goods in the street markets or seaside paseos.
It’s far easier to forget that most of them end up working gruelling hours in appalling conditions within the agricultural sector, mainly in the Almería province as Andalucía has a far greater number of migrant arrivals than Murcia due to the shorter crossing distance from the African continent, and are frequently exploited as they are working illegally, largely “out of sight, out of mind” behind plastic green house coverings or in little transited rural areas.
From time to time a team of foreign documentary makers arrive and film the appalling living conditions in which 15-20 agricultural workers habitually live together, mop their brows in the 40 degree heat inside the plastic green houses and exclaim at the brutality of ripping out thousands of dead courgette plants or picking tomatoes by hand in this level of heat, and then disappear off up the coast in their air-conditioned transporters to examine the plastic waste generated by the agricultural sector as it disintegrates and blows into the sea, thus successfully squeezing two programmes out of a single camera crew.
And back in the UK consumers check out the prices in competing supermarkets to save 10p a kilo on ripe tomatoes for 99p a bag, grown in southern Spain, shipped to the UK and making a healthy profit for the supermarkets constantly attempting to drive down the price without compromising on quality, without ever questioning how this is physically possible.
Spain attempts to deport the illegal immigrants who pay unscrupulous organisations to put them in a tiny boat and send them off towards our coast, tipping off the Spanish coastguard that they are on the way to ensure that they are picked up and taken safely to shore in the full knowledge that it will prove impossible to establish the country of origin of most of these travellers in order to deport them, and around half will be allowed to stay in Spain as “sin papeles” which means “no papers” when the authorities are unsuccessful in ejecting them.
They’re not allowed to work and have no rights, so can only work illegally. The Spanish authorities regularly carry out checks on the agricultural sector, penalising the farmers who employ illegal workers, but it would require a huge army of inspectors to successfully monitor the vast agricultural production areas of Spain and many farmers are prepared to take the risk of employing “illegals” in order to make their produce viable and competitive in a difficult market.
So most are undetected.
Occasionally however, the odd “illegal” comes to light and this is the situation with this latest police investigation.
It began on 3rd June 2019, when a topographer was mapping land parcels in Lorca and discovered the decomposing body of a man alongside an electrical tower.
The body was removed and investigating officers attempted to identify the individual concerned.
During this process it came to light that a Senegalese man had been reported missing in Lorca on May 30th and it soon became apparent that the deceased was the missing man.
He had been electrocuted.
The electricity supplier confirmed that their system had registered two incidents relating to the power supply system which co-incided with the time at which the man was believed to have died.
Investigators seeking answers as to why the man concerned was on the property at this time and why he had been in contact with the electrical supply soon found the reason; he was illegally employed by the finca owner and had been working at the time of the incident.
No details have been given as to exactly what he had done to cause his death, but his former employer now faces charges of manslaughter through negligence and charges relating to abuse of workers’ rights, according to the press release.
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