Tens of thousands march in Madrid to mourn pensioner whose eviction sparked housing protests

Tens of thousands of people marched in Madrid to mourn the death of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal. Her eviction from her apartment in September sparked a wave of housing protests. According to France 24, the protests prompted the government to call early elections.

Abascal used a wheelchair and died in hospital two weeks after being evicted from the apartment where she had lived for 70 years, as reported by the Japan Times and Malay Mail. The eviction was carried out by a real estate company that had drastically hiked the rent, and Abascal was taken away on a stretcher.

The march began at the Puerta del Sol square, where an improvised shrine of candles, flowers, and placards had been set up, and proceeded to Abascal's former home in the Retiro district, according to the Malay Mail. A teacher, Rosa Marin, was quoted by the Malay Mail as saying that Abascal "will be an icon of struggle" and that she had made people realise they could no longer tolerate the situation.

Brief written by urgent.news from France 24, Malay Mail, Japan Times — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.