Tragic Death of Young Moroccan Farmworker Sparks Outcry in Spain’s Almeria

The 22-year-old man arrived in Spain seven months ago and intended to settle in Bilbao. He wanted to stay in the province for the three years required to obtain a residence permit. Unfortunately, fate decided otherwise. In mid-August, Mohamed was violently hit by a car and died. His seasonal worker colleagues on the El Hoyo farm, in the municipality of Níjar, initiated a fundraiser to repatriate his body to Morocco.

Lourdes, a Red Cross volunteer, tells the story of Mohamed to El Diario, denouncing the silence around the young man’s death. "He deserves to have his name known and for it to be said somewhere how this province enriches itself at the expense of children like him," she wrote in her letter to the newspaper. Mohamed attended the Spanish lessons she gives on the farms. He was a "good student, a charming boy, very cheerful, always ready to help," she says.

A colleague of Lourdes told her that the young man was hit by a car while cycling in the dark and without a helmet, according to the reports. Mohamed had arrived in Spain on a boat from Algeria. Like him, many young people flock to Almeria or Huelva to work on farms as seasonal workers. It is a "young, strong and very cheap workforce, most of them have no contract, but they tell you that here they are paid five euros an hour and in Morocco they only get one euro".

Most of these seasonal workers are between 18 and 45 years old and live in stress and loneliness in the greenhouses. "They hardly ever go out and have no social relationships. We are not aware of their situation," Lourdes regrets.