The National Police have arrested nine farmers who allegedly set fire to a fruit and vegetable warehouse, inside which there were 25 workers, during the agricultural protests last February in El Ejido (Almería). Most of the employees were able to leave through the emergency door, although one of them required hospital treatment for smoke inhalation.
As indicated by the Almería Police Station, this “radical action” falls within the context of rural protests against companies that sell products from Morocco.
As night fell, the detainees went masked up to the facilities of a fruit and vegetable wholesale company; Armed with several tires, a mattress and a can of gasoline, they accessed the loading dock, lit the material and threw it inside the ship, where at that time there were 25 workers working.
One of these employees, upon realizing the situation, went to the dock and closed the hatch, endangering his own integrity, thus preventing those arrested from introducing more burning objects into a facility that at that time contained tons of highly flammable material.
The arsonists fled the scene in several vehicles with the lights off, and it was the workers, first, and later firefighters and the National Police, who extinguished the fire and secured the place.
Most of the workers managed to escape from the ship through the emergency exit, although one of them had to be rushed to the Poniente University Hospital in El Ejido affected by smoke inhalation, but is now out of danger.
The agents belonging to the El Ejido Judicial Police Brigade managed to identify the nine alleged perpetrators of the fire, who had no other relationship than participating in different protest forums over the situation in the agricultural sector.
The researchers verified how they were becoming radicalized in the different chats they were part of, feeding each other until they planned the incendiary action.
The Police assure that those now detained were perfectly aware of the existence of workers on the ship at the time of the events and still continued with a plan that could have claimed human lives. It is estimated that the material damage amounts to 26,000 euros.
The detainees, accused of the crime of aggravated arson, were placed at the disposal of the Dean of the Investigative Courts of El Ejido.
