“We are dismayed as a population.
They have been tragic
events
.
Everyone is very affected," says
Clarín
Oriol Ribalta, mayor of Sallent, the Catalan town 74 kilometers from Barcelona where an Argentine family experiences the worst of tragedies: the death of
Alana
, one of two 12-year-old sisters who they would have jumped into the void together from the balcony of their house.
Leila, her twin,
survived but she is hospitalized, serious.
The girls fell from the third floor of the building where they lived with their parents and another brother at the entrance to the town of 6,700 inhabitants.
It happened on Tuesday afternoon.
According to police sources, they left two chairs on the balcony, from which they would have jumped, and
handwritten letters saying goodbye.
A cousin of the girls pointed out that they suffered
bullying at school
, for speaking with an Argentine accent, "because they are Argentine," he said.
From Argentina, the girls' grandmother confirmed it to a Spanish television channel:
"The parents spoke with the school, but nothing was done
," said the grandmother.
In Sallent, Barcelona, the investigation into the tragedy of the Argentine twins continues.
Photo: EFE
Leila and Alana were in the first year of ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education), according to Spanish law.
They attended the Llobregat Public Institute where, according to the town council, they received psychological assistance.
From the Department of Education of the Generalitat, which is the Catalan government,
they deny that the girls were targets of bullying
for being Argentine.
It also transpired that some classmates had said that Alana, the twin who died, "had cut her hair and wanted us to call her Ivan."
The Sallent Town Hall, where
the family that had moved two years ago
, decreed three days of mourning.
On Wednesday, numerous residents gathered in front of the municipality to commemorate the tragedy by holding a minute of silence.
Mayor Ribalta, a 28-year-old graduate in Political Science who is a member of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), has been in charge of the Sallent City Council since 2019. From there, he answered some questions from
Clarín
:
-What evidence do you have that the girls did not suffer from bullying, as indicated by the Ministry of Education?
-What we say is that
all the hypotheses are open
and we want to know exactly what has happened.
We cannot confirm this hypothesis.
This rumor has come out but it is about a family that received social attention, they were helped at a social, educational and psychological level.
This situation cannot be attributed to a specific issue.
We can't confirm it.
-Nor deny it...
-We say that this is
a complex social case.
All the protocols were activated and, according to the information we have, this (bullying) had not been detected.
Therefore, we cannot say that it existed.
-There are residents of Sallent, however, who assure that those who come from outside suffer rejection.
-No.
We are a welcoming people for everyone who has come for many years.
We are not aware in any case that there was rejection of any kind.
From the moment you come to live here and the reception and language services open, there are resources of all kinds.
In this case, for them,
the language was not a problem
.
We deny it.
-What were the reasons why the girls received psychological and social assistance?
-That is part of the intimacy of the family.
But what I can tell you is that when social care is provided, it is not performed solely on the person but jointly.
The intervention is done in the environment.
-Was it a request from the family or did the school notice some alarm signs in the behavior of the girls?
I don't have that information.
-Did you know the family?
-Not personally.
-According to demographic data, about twenty Argentines live in Sallent.
-I didn't know.
I met a couple of people who told me they were from Argentina, but I didn't know.
Was it a socially integrated family?
-I do not know.
Madrid.
Correspondent
look also
12-year-old Argentine twins fell from the third floor of a building in Barcelona: one died and the other is very serious
The drama of the twins in Barcelona: they investigate whether they suffered bullying for "the simple fact of being Argentine"