2023-12-26 23:09:46
Barcelona[Aquest article conté expressions explícites que poden ferir la sensibilitat dels lectors]
It is one of the many points of the Raval. It’s not the worst. But day after day, needles and traces of blood are scattered on the ground among the traffic of pedestrians and young students. It is the street of shame, the street of Agustí Duran and Sanpere in Barcelona. Some drug addicts inject themselves while three- or four-year-old children play past them, just two meters away. While a person injects the syringe into the body leaning against the wall, four meters above, the children of Escola Milà and Fontanals spy smiling and playful through the metal net that surrounds the playground.
Some afternoons, up to four or five people, in broad daylight, half-hidden among the motorbikes parked in the alley. The residents have gotten used to it, resigned to seeing syringes scattered on the floor every morning, until City Council workers pick them up. Those who live in the block of buildings in front of the school warn each other. “Don’t leave the bike so close, they get punctured there,” warns a man to a young family member.
In plain sight of everyone
Now the most common are Josep and Rosa. They had been in the Mina, and for more than a month they have been wandering in the upper part of the Raval. Many nights they sleep in the alley. They spread up to eight blankets over the frozen ground and settle in to protect themselves from the cold. After consuming, he remains with a lost gaze, fixed on a distant point on the horizon for whole minutes. Abstract, hanging, sunken. One day at the end of November, while they are still under the blankets looking for warmth, a young man approaches them, insistent and anxious. Rosa leaves and Josep shares a drink with him. They spend almost two hours chatting, until the young man goes through the belongings of the itinerant camp and takes a few items – among them, a coat.
base camp
For three months, the ARA has monitored what happens day and night in this alley – where the newspaper is based. In the early hours, before 8.30 am, the cleaning brigades comb all the perimeters of the schools in the neighborhood to avoid any misfortune. They cannot always finish their work before the minors enter the centers. “One day some child will be stabbed,” warns a council worker.
There is a danger that children will prick themselves with a syringe”
Public Health Worker
The same notice issued by a couple of young Public Health agents who control and accompany people who are consuming in the neighborhood. “If I had children, I wouldn’t want to live here. There’s a danger they’ll be injected with a syringe,” says one. They pass a minimum of four times a day through the most conflicting points. They warn that a false alarm is being created with fentanyl, which is practically non-existent in this area of the city. There have been some false positives in the analyses, but it is practically not sold: consumers are very afraid of it, as it is a very lethal drug. They also assure that right now, in the Raval, the majority of consumption is of injected cocaine. Heroin is of poor quality and this has led to product substitution.
Usual point of consumption
José Ángel confirms it. He is 53 years old and it has been 23 years since he landed in Barcelona from Galicia, where he got to know up close some of the clans that dominated the Spanish market. “Do you mind?” he asks before kicking himself, without stopping to talk about the harshness of living on the streets. He and a friend paid 15 euros for a shared dose of cocaine. For five euros you can get a poor quality one. “Now I’m injecting cocaine, because heroin is very bad,” he says, speaking calmly, next to a garbage container, with the needle hanging from his arm and a thread of blood running down his skin . While the needle is still stuck in the arm some pedestrians pass by distractedly. They don’t even look at the scene, distracted by their own antics. Or they have normalized it. Nor does anyone notice the homeless person sleeping in a doorway a few meters away. It’s 6:30 p.m. on a working day in Carrer Egipcíades. It is another of the Raval’s black spots. Like Plaça de la Gardunya or the gardens of Rubió and Lluch.
Drug addicts come and go. Josep and Rosa have been settled in the area for just over a month. Before, Azxac, a 36-year-old Pakistani boy, and Mohamed, 39, used to go there. The first has been using for three years, the second for two. They can spend 30 euros a day, although they have sometimes invested more than a hundred. For a few weeks, they could be seen pricking each other two or three times each day in the same corner. “The street is very hard, the only way out is drugs,” recounts Azxac, who tried to work collecting scrap with his cart, but the four pieces he managed to collect were often stolen and he finally gave up. Now he lives – barely lives – on the coins given to him by tourists and neighbors.
The street is very hard, the only way out is drugs”
Azxac
A few days later Azxac and Mohamed disappeared. His place is taken by a young man dressed in an elegant, flamboyant shirt with geometric patterns. He carries the drug in a shoe. After injecting himself for the second time in a few minutes, he takes the shoe and hides it in Plaça de Joan Amades. He cleans his bloody arms and feet in a nearby fountain, scares a couple of tourists who are absentmindedly walking down the street, enters a bank office and, after a few seconds, hurriedly leaves until he gets lost in an old building in the Raval.
Some drug addicts are aware of the danger of syringes and collect them. In some cases, they even bring wet wipes to clean the blood off the floor. A fixation for some are the motorbikes that surround them, especially a couple of vehicles that, despite the police checks that record the number plates, haven’t moved for more than three months. They are undone, battered, and one of the drug addicts spends a long time rummaging in all the corners, under the seat, between the wheels.
Activity during the day is high, although it has decreased with the arrival of the cold. During some nights the alley also comes alive. Not only for the homeless who are looking for a corner to hide, among the row of motorbikes and bicycles, protected by cardboard and blankets, but also for the groups of drug addicts who gather there. It is not surprising that some mornings the whole alley is a mess of dirt, including feces and urine, clothes and food. Sometimes the Urban Guard turns them away, although many have nowhere to go.
The evening
On more than one occasion the alley is a place of exchange. A girl absentmindedly leaves a bag on the floor near the school wall. After a while two guys arrive, get high and take the bag without looking inside, as if it was left for them. From the top of the school yard, the children look on with laughter.
#drugs #door #school