More than 300 people lived and worked in a occupied industrial warehouse in Barcelona’s district Poblenou. Many of them are undocumented and survive by collecting scrap metal. A judicial process was opened in the summer of 2012, in which the City Council and the owners were demanding the immediate expulsion of those inside. It was finally canceled thanks to the work of their lawyers and the solidarity of many social and neighborhood organizations sensitive to the rights of its inhabitants. After almost a year, the trial was reopened and a sentence was handed down to proceed to eviction. After a long struggle to enforce human rights above property rights, last 24th of July 2013 a large police deployment proceeded to evict them. The plight of this people, far from being resolved, became worst because apart from losing their jobs and home, they are now dispersed and made invisible. PH UT SUT was the name of the warehouse where scrap was stored. It means ‘pursuit of greatness’ in one of the 17 African languages that could be heard inside.
