75 people, migrants most were evacuated Monday morning by firefighters after a fire in a squat occupied for over a year in Marseille ((Bouches-du-Rhône).
Since December 2018, families of migrants and unaccompanied minors (UAMs) have been welcomed as volunteers by associations in this large three-storey building, a former building of the diocese.
Monday morning, help was called at 7 a.m. at the Saint-Just squat for significant smoke generation
, said the Marseille firefighters.
The fire started on the ground floor of the building, they said, without having yet determined the origin of the fire.
The firefighters evacuated and secured the people inside the squat, including children, whom they then examined. There are currently no victims, no inconvenienced people
, they assured.
The squat had accommodated up to 350 people
It’s terrible, but luckily it didn’t happen in the middle of the night otherwise there would have been victims
responded Mami, a social worker at the squat.
It’s the end of Saint-Just, we never thought it would end like this
, he added, visibly moved. Like other volunteers, he had a blow to the heart
by seeing the inhabitants of the squat leave in metropolitan buses.
Two metropolitan buses transported the homeless migrants to a gymnasium in the north of the city.
The Saint-Just squat, which accommodated up to 350 people, had recently seen the departure of many of its occupants, foreign minors relocated by the services of the department.
After having been sentenced twice by the courts in April and May, the Bouches-du-Rhône departmental council had taken charge of part of the unaccompanied minors present at the squat.
The court had indeed estimated that in the midst of an epidemic of coronavirus, these young people, entrusted to child welfare by a judge, had no place in a squat with unworthy living conditions.
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