Neighbors of Los Rosales protest the installation of an immigrant settlement next to a daycare center

The neighborhood is humble, once conflictive (there are still traces of the turbulence caused by drugs). The Rosales. Behind his prison, now in disuse, dozens of workers wearing yellow vests place the metal poles on which an immigrant settlement will rise. Just ten steps away, stands the new kindergarten that this September 28 was going to unify the students of two others: Our Lady of Africa and Juan Carlos I. More than 170 boys and girls playing a few meters from a camp. "And they're going to be outside, with my daughter. I don't want that."

His name is Neuer Mohammed, he is 26 years old and has two children. The little one, Emira, is not even three years old. She hides her dark curls in her mother's neck, covered with a hijab. "Many parents do not feel safe when they go to work. There are altercations and that is going to happen here too, we are seeing it," he says.

She is one of the mothers who, since yesterday, has been protesting with neighbors and teachers on the three thousand square meter esplanade to stop the installation. "We have tried to stop it by all means and we are not going to be able to avoid it."

Last night, the calling power was not what was expected. Only about twenty residents endured the night hours outdoors. "Look, if there are no streetlights here, there is nothing," says Nawal, 42. He lives in the adjacent buildings, which border the Loma Colmenar neighborhood, where immigrants sleep outdoors or wander aimlessly during the days.

This morning, there were few mothers left contemplating the scene. "I'll only tell you one thing, if something happens to my daughter, I'm going to defend myself," says Noelia. The pigtails of Jimena, her daughter, wave every time the girl bends down to touch the gravel of the esplanade. "I can't take her to another daycare because they had combined the two in the area into one: Our Lady of Africa and Juan Carlos I."

"The problem is not the settlement, they have done that in all locations. The problem is that here they tell you that there is room for 1,500 or 2,000 and many stay outside, hanging around. Those outside are going to live uncontrolled," predicts this neighbor.

Nobody has told them about the operation. The only clue is given by the row of military trucks that unload the material next to the two excavators. Government sources assure that the maneuver was not the work of the central Executive and the regional Government has not yet commented. Although they do not know which people will be referred to this enclave, the neighbors sense that they will be adult men who sleep on the street, given that women and girls already have centers such as La Hípica.