Two sisters, aged 64 and 54, committed suicide this Monday morning in a flat in Carrer de Navas de Tolosa, in the Sant Andreu district of Barcelona, hours before they were due to be evicted from their apartment. As El País reported and ElNacional.cat has confirmed, the two women left in a visible place the court document indicating that they were to be evicted this Monday for non-payment of rent. In the document, the two tenants were informed that the eviction would take place from eleven o'clock in the morning. The Mossos d'Esquadra police have opened an investigation, in which the main hypothesis is that of a double suicide.
The two women are thus thought to have chosen to throw themselves into the void in the building's interior patio, committing suicide at half past five in the morning, and the judicial officials who were to proceed with the eviction were informed by the Mossos. Initially, however, police presence had not been called for in this eviction. Of the two sisters, only one was listed as registered resident in the flat, rented from a private individual, who filed a claim for non-payment in May 2023, with a debt accumulated since March 2021 of around 9,000 euros.
In the legal proceedings leading up to the eviction, neither of the two female residents was named, and the Barcelona City Council was required by the court to make a report on the vulnerability of the residents in the event of eviction. However, the municipal technicians who went to the home of the two sisters to assess the vulnerability situation, were unable to contact anyone, despite going there on several occasions and even leaving them messages, according to municipal sources cited by El País, indicating that the council itself had already alerted the court of this situation. This very Monday morning, staff from the Health and Social Emergency Centre of Barcelona (CUESB) also went to the building to attend to the residents.
It's not the first time it's happened
In any case, it is not the first time that a resident threatened with eviction has opted for suicide. In Barcelona there have been several cases in recent years that have followed this pattern. In May 2023, a 56-year-old woman committed suicide on the same day she was to be evicted from her home on Gran Via and, in fact, it was the judicial entourage that, after ringing the doorbell repeatedly without receiving an answer, activated a locksmith service to open the door. The woman's body was found inside the flat, in the bathroom.