Scores of illegal immigrants living in a space ‘disguised as a souvenir shop’ have gone missing after Porto City Council closed the premises for “lack of the minimum conditions of safety or hygiene”.
SIC Notícias reports today that this was the 10th such enforced closure since the start of the year – but now the municipality has no idea where nigh on 125 undocumented immigrants, previously living in this and other spaces, have gone.
Porto mayor Pedro Duarte explains: “We have not received any requests for help – which makes us think these people have found another solution. We have no indication that they are living on the streets.”
Much has been made by City Hall in this purge of unlicensed residences that they represent “situations of violations of human dignity”. But the fact remains that no-one knows where the individuals – forcibly protected from violations of their own dignity – have ended up.
According to SIC, this latest closure will have been another example of the ‘hot bed’ system used by immigrants, in which they pay for ‘hours spent in a bed’ – obliged to get out of it, for someone else to get in, when their time is up.
“In the basement of the shop in Rua de Santa Catarina, authorities found around 10 beds, and indecent conditions. No one knows how many people lived here, nor what money they paid. They disappeared as soon as the owner was notified (about the closure), but there is a profile that repeats itself in this kind of lodging”, says SIC.
“There is a migrant population that is in a phase of special vulnerability”, admits Pedro Duarte. “They are exploited people, sometimes by (trafficking) networks.”
What this suggests – and what has been trailed a number of times in the recent past – is that souvenir shops are a front for these kind of illegal residences (and more). Porto’s mayor is hoping his municipality’s campaign of closing such places down will be a dissuasive factor to the people behind them. He “guarantees” that City Hall has the capacity to help people rendered homeless as a result.
In SIC’s perspective, “Pedro Duarte wants to be the architect of change, and defends strong measures against illegal accommodation within the city.
“There are no definitive numbers on the tally of illegal residences in Porto, but the municipality continues to receive information from local people”, says the media outlet.
Source material: SIC Notícias
