'Get out,' says Spain's king as protesters pelt him and wife with mud after devastating floods
A crowd of angry survivors hurled clots of mud left by storm floods at Spain's royal couple – King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia – on Sunday during their first visit to the site of the country's deadliest natural disaster.
Spain's national broadcaster reported that the attack included several stones and other objects, and that two security guards were treated for injuries. One appeared to have a bloody wound on his forehead.
It was an unprecedented event in the royal house that carefully created the image of the kings who are praised by their country of more than 48 million people.
Anger has been unleashed on a government that seems frustrated and unable to meet the needs of people who are used to living under a functioning government.
Officials also rushed Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to the scene shortly after his party began walking through mud-covered streets in one of the worst-hit areas, where more than 60 people have died and thousands have been displaced. The climate change-fueled disaster has killed at least 205 people in eastern Spain.
“Get out! Get out!” and “The Assassins!” the crowd in the town of Paiporta shouted, among other insults. Guards opened umbrellas to protect members of the royal family and other officials from the hurled mud.
The police had to intervene, some on horseback, to stop the large crowd, some carrying shovels and poles.
Letizia broke down in emotional tears after speaking to several people, including one woman who was crying in her arms.
But even after being forced to seek protection, Felipe, covered in mud, remained calm and made several attempts to speak to individual residents. He persisted in trying to talk to people as he tried to continue his visit. He spoke to several people, patting two young men on the back and giving each other a quick hug, with mud stains on his black raincoat.
However, one woman hit the official car with an umbrella and another kicked it before it left.
Although far from the excitement of the British public who act as members of the royal family, Felipe and Letizia's public events are often greeted by crowds of fans.
Felipe, 56, took the throne after his father, Juan Carlos, abdicated in 2014 after being tainted by financial and personal scandals. Felipe soon cut a new figure, renounced his personal estate and increased the financial visibility of his royal house. He and Letizia, a 52-year-old former journalist, devote an important part of their public agenda to cultural and scientific causes.
Visiting the country's disaster sites is also part of the royal duties of the monarchs, who are seen as a strengthening force in the parliamentary system that was restored after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
But public anger at the mismanagement of the flood crisis has been growing. Felipe heard some boos when he took part in a eulogy for the victims of the 2017 terrorist attacks in Barcelona, but that was nothing compared to the reception on Sunday.
Letizia had mud puddles on her hands and arms as she talked to the women.
“We don't have water,” said one woman.
Many people still don't have drinking water five days after the floods hit. Internet and cell phone coverage is often spotty. Most people only got power on Saturday. Shops and malls are in ruins and Paiporta, with a population of 30,000, still has many city blocks filled with piles of detritus, countless totaled cars and mud everywhere.
Thousands have had their homes destroyed by the tsunami-like mudslide and anger over the mismanagement of the disaster.
Floods were already raging in Paiporta when district officials issued a mobile phone alert. It felt like two hours had passed.
Spain's worst flood-related disaster in more than five decades has killed more than 200 people, with the number still unknown, four days after torrential rains battered the eastern region of Valencia, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday.
More anger has been caused by the inability of officials to respond quickly after the result. Many of the clean-ups of layers and layers of mud and debris that have entered countless homes have been done by residents and thousands of volunteers.
“We lost everything!” someone shouted.
Sunday's chants included demands aimed at Valencia regional President Carlo Mazon, whose administration is in charge of public protection, to step down, and “Where is Pedro Sanchez?”
“I feel the anger and I stayed to find out,” Mazon told X. “It was my moral and political obligation. The king's attitude this morning was exemplary.”
Spain's national broadcaster RTVE reported that the violence against the royal family included several stones and other hard objects being thrown and that two guards were treated for injuries, while the monarchs and officials made another stop on Sunday in the second hard-hit town, Chiva. , about half an hour east of the city of Valencia.
Source link
