Hassan Abeid Salem He was born in Sidi Ifni on August 1, 1957, when the territory was still a Spanish colony. However, he never obtained Spanish nationality and when speaking to him he shows a photocopy of his birth certificate, the only document that confirms his origins and which he treasures.
Life has not been easy for Hassan, who He has been living in a shack for four years. which he himself built, collecting materials and even laying concrete, next to the Sa Riera stream on the side and Calle de Jesús.
Hassan has been in Mallorca for more than 50 yearsarrived here with a false identity card that a friend gave him. Some time later the National Police confiscated it and he has been undocumented ever since. Before living on Hassan Street He spent ten years in prison“unfairly.” According to his account, an individual tried to steal his mobile phone when he was leaving for treatment in Son Espases. Hassan defended himself: “I have studied martial arts, I grabbed him, he fell to the ground and we got into a fight.” The attacker attacked him with two sticks, and it was then that Hassan searched through his backpack and took out a multi-purpose knife and said to him: “You’re leaving, by fair means or foul”. He made a bad choice. A month later the police showed up at the house where he was living at the time, on General Ricardo Ortega Street. “They accused me of attempted murder,” he explains.
A decade later, after serving his sentence, he arrived COVID: «They didn’t let me out, they took me to His Moix with more prisoners. They put mattresses and gave us food for two months,” he recalls.
After that they sent him to the hostel of Ca l’Ardiacabetween the Son Valentí cemetery and General Riera street. She wanted to get her citizen card but couldn’t without an ID card, however, on her way back to the shelter she passed through Jesús street and discovered something she could do with her time: “A woman was trying to get her car out of where it was parked but couldn’t. I kept giving her signals to help her.”
This is how He started acting as a ‘gorilla’ in the parking lot behind the Ramon Llull Library. “I started earning five, ten, and even fifteen euros. There was an abandoned car and I slept there during the day at times,” he says. found a bicycle that someone had thrown away which was missing a pedal: “I had ten euros, so I took it to a cyclist to fix it and I went from here to Ca l’Ardiaca with it.” One day, on my way back to the reception centre, one of the wheels got a puncture.
“I ran back because they closed at 10:30 p.m. and there were five minutes left. When I arrived I found the man who was flushing the chain and he told me that I could no longer enter. because my bed was already occupied. I came back here and they had taken the abandoned car. So I went down to the torrent and started to fix this.he explains, pointing to the shack where he now lives.
Since he has lived in this area, the neighbors have helped him by giving him sheets, clothes and food. In addition, The Red Cross has helped him regularize his situation and after much insistence he now has a Moroccan passport, but is still waiting for his long-awaited Spanish ID.
