Young women who work in the bars of the Major square in Manresa and its surroundings have long stopped returning home alone after work. They share a WhatsApp group where they coordinate to accompany each other and activate location sharing so the rest know where they are at all times and that they have arrived safely at their destinations.
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This is not an urban legend. It is fear. A real fear, wrapped in helplessness and frustration, which this week overflowed, fueled by an intense feeling of pain after the homicide of Carles Vilajosana Arocas, a 45-year-old resident of Castellnou de Bages. The death of the gardener, father of twins and very beloved in the region, has also brought hateful speeches against a certain immigration to the streets of the city, which not even the verified fact that the two minors arrested for the death were born and raised in Manresa has managed to silence.
Beyond that not-so-subtle layer of racism, which everyone warns is not the case, there is a fear that exists and is repeated by many Manresa residents when asked. “I have stopped going out calmly on the street. And my friends too,” explains Mrs. Pepita with the serenity of a splendid 94 years, despite needing a cane to walk, sitting on a bench on Divina Pastora street.
Next to her, protected from the sun in the shade, are Blasi Mellado, 74 years old, and her husband. She arrived very young with her family from Córdoba, met her husband in Manresa, and remembers that back then she boasted of living “in the best city in the world.” What has happened? “Everything has become very ugly. I am also afraid and at night we don’t even think about going out anymore.” None of the three have suffered assaults or thefts. But they feel intimidated. Fear is free, and once it settles in, it is hard to get rid of.
The official statistics from the Mossos d’Esquadra and the Manresa Urban Guard contradict that perception of insecurity conveyed by many residents of the capital of Bages. The data shows a 6% decrease in criminal acts so far this year. But the good figures and messages do not manage to reassure those who say they have changed their habits out of fear.
Àngels Valls does not leave home without pepper spray and is considering leaving the city where she was born
“They can tell me whatever they want. They have let a city that was peaceful go to ruin. We are tired, worried, and fed up with so much riffraff. I don’t care if they come from there or are from here, but at night it’s scary to walk through the center.” The speaker is Àngels Vall, 58 years old, born and living in Manresa. She never imagined she would want to leave her city. Now she does. She leaves home with a can of pepper spray because she has a fear she says she has never felt before. The woman runs a bar in the Major square and what she tells this reporter she has said to the mayor’s face, the republican Marc Aloy, whenever she has had the chance.
Manresa has a little over 82,000 inhabitants, according to the latest census reading, with data from January 1. It is a population record for the capital of Bages, which has maintained steady growth of around 1,000 inhabitants per year for some time, mainly due to the arrival of people from abroad, who now represent more than 22% of the population.
The foreign community with the greatest presence is, by far, the Moroccan one, with more than 7,000 people. A population settled in the city for decades and made up of neighbors who watch with concern how the violent behavior of a few places them all under suspicion. Police sources describe the Moroccan community as “zero conflictive.”
At 57 years old, Jesús Martín found work two months ago as a municipal street sweeper. On Friday he did not want to touch the dozens of candles, some already extinguished, that Carles Vilajosana’s friends lit in tears the first night after his death next to the benches on Divina Pastora street, a few meters from where he was stabbed.
Jesús Martín and his family ran a bar that they had to close. The blow came when they had to repay the loans they had requested to survive covid. Now he receives a paycheck at the end of the month and says he lives without those worries. He is slowly adapting to his new life and, from that window that means walking through the neighborhoods with his broom, he assures that his city has changed. And for the worse. “It is out of control. It’s as if no one puts order. My children are grown, but lately I ask them to be very careful.”
Young women who work in downtown bars return home accompanied out of fear
In front of the candles there is a scene that serves as a metaphor for what may be happening in Manresa. There are two benches. On one sit Pepita, Blasi, her husband, and another neighbor who uses a walker. On the other, three Moroccans dressed in the long tunic they wear to Friday prayers at the mosque.
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They do not look at each other. They do not speak.
During the fifteen minutes this reporter patiently observes the scene, there is not a single gesture from one side to the other. They do not know each other. And perhaps the worst for everyone is that the disinterest in knowing things about the other grows more and more. Ignorance generates distrust. And distrust feeds fear.
The two minors arrested for the crime of Carles Vilajosana — one of them identified as the alleged stabber — were part of a group of teenagers who lived in the basements of a dilapidated lot, where they slept on worn mattresses. It is one of the groups of teenagers, many born here and of Moroccan immigrant parents, although there are also Venezuelans and nationals with Spanish parents, who roam at night and gather around the Casino, on Pere III promenade. Neighbors and merchants point to them as responsible for much of the incidents that have ended up feeding that feeling of insecurity.
The police who know them describe them as teenagers who move on scooters at high speed, without respecting the minimum rules of coexistence; who intimidate those who look at them when they are in groups and challenge those who confront them. They are no more than about twenty, spread across three specific neighborhoods. Barely twenty compared to a Moroccan community of more than 7,000 people that this week, from the city’s mosques, joined the expressions of dismay and rejection of the crime.
The capital of Bages has a community of 7,000 zero-conflict Moroccans, say the Mossos
The Mossos agents specialized in juvenile delinquency know them all, one by one. That is why, after Carles’ homicide, the first data provided by witnesses was enough to know who the suspects were and where they could be found.
These are not official statements, but police officials admit that the activity of this small group has contributed to feeding that entrenched fear in Manresa, now increased by the homicide of the man who loved to jump in the Patum.
The municipal government, formed by ERC, PSC, and Impulsem Manresa, launched various measures to reinforce street security. The Urban Guard staff increased — although slightly, in the words of the mayor himself — security cameras were installed, and the Security, Civility, and Coexistence Table was promoted to address insecurity problems transversally, together with municipal groups and the associative network.
A few months before the crime, the president of the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Manresa, Jaume Canudes, already warned that the atmosphere in the city had become tense and that part of the neighbors did not feel safe.
After Carles’ murder, Canudes has called for responsibility to avoid fueling racist speeches. But he has also demanded that it be tackled forcefully that some minors, well known for their conflictiveness, with records and under surveillance measures, continued to roam until one allegedly used the knife he carried against Carles Vilajosana.
The police know and control about twenty teenagers responsible for much of the neighborhood fear
On Divina Pastora street, in front of the candles in memory of the victim, the two benches remain separated by just a few meters. On one sit Pepita and her neighbors. On the other, three Moroccan men who have just come from praying. Perhaps the problem in Manresa is not the meters that separate the two benches, but everything that has grown between them.
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