Europe's largest shanty town faces anxious verdict after battling fifth winter without electricity
When the lights went out in Cañada Real in early October 2020, thousands of families thought they were experiencing a common power cut. They lit candles, turned on their torches and waited. But the hours turned into days, and then weeks, and now, more than four years and five biting winters later, they still do not have power.
Researchers have described the crisis as "a collective disconnection case of unprecedented magnitude in Europe", with around 4,000 people, including an estimated 1,800 children, affected. "Without electricity, we live worse than they did in the seventeenth century," says Dolore Bruno, a 42-year- old resident.
"The blackout started when the energy provider implemented technical changes to the local power distribution infrastructure. Because Cañada Real is an informal settlement, it has always been difficult for residents to agree legal contracts with utility providers, and as a result, most people have relied on irregular connections to nearby electricity networks for decades.
In 2020 new capacity requirements were applied unilaterally to the local power distribution infrastructure of which most residents were informally connected. Sixty percent of the settlement’s 8,000-strong population, those living in sectors 5 and 6, were effectively cut off with no notice.
The energy provider Naturgy later blamed illegal, intensive and irregular use of electricity, saying it overloaded the system and triggered emergency shutdowns. Meanwhile the regional government of Madrid, at least initially, said cannabis farms had crashed the electricity supplies.
But now, in a groundbreaking decision published at the end of February, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) has condemned the State, determining that Spain has breached multiple articles of the Revised European Social Charter, including the rights of adequate housing and decent living conditions. It has called on all administrations to find an "urgent" solution.
The social cost of blackouts
The first houses in Cañada Real, which is located just a 15-minute drive from the edge of Madrid and sprawls across 15km, were built in the 1950s and 1960s by Spanish migrants arriving from impoverished rural areas. Later, as other shanty towns across the outskirts of the capital were demolished, more settlers arrived, including migrants from Morocco and Romania. Most residents today live in precarious situations, with an estimated 90 percent facing poverty.
Houda Akrikez, a 38-year-old mother of three, has lived with her family in Cañada Real since 1993, when she was nine years old. Back then, she says, her family had a normal supply of electricity and a life not dissimilar to those of her peers. "We were like all families in Spain," she says.
But today, her life is far removed. "How do you manage a house without electricity?" she asks. "How do you cook without an oven, preserve food without a fridge, wash clothes without a machine? How can the children complete their homework – which is all digital now?"
Akrikez has two teenage daughters and an 18-month-old, and says Cañada Real's children feel the brunt of the crisis. "When the children wake up, everything is dark and cold. They want to heat some food, but they can't. They can't use the toaster. They can't have a warm shower. They can't do their homework, which is all online. There are such basic things that any other child can have, but ours can't," she says.
The cold she describes is a common issue for residents. Many of the homes are made of brick and cement, but at least half of inhabitants live under corrugated roofs and tarpaulins. Out on the streets, families gather around fires to warm their hands, and absorb as much light from the grey skies as possible.
"We shake from the cold, sometimes we climb into our beds to find they are frozen," Akrikez says.
The World Health Organization's guidelines prescribe 18°C as a minimum comfort indoor temperature, but data from an autumn 2021 survey found that only temperatures below 17°C were reported. A later report by the Carlos III University of Madrid found temperatures in the most used rooms of the resident's homes above 40°C in summer and below 10°C in winter.
To stave off the cold, many people burn wood or cardboard, while others have bought butane gas cookers and firewood heaters. But such survival techniques are dangerous, residents say, leading to a spike in fires and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Thirty-nine-year-old Antonio Molina says his one-year-old granddaughter was rushed to hospital that morning because of suspected poisoning. "She became intoxicated because of the gas," he says.
Early into the power outage, the home of Akrikez, who founded and leads the neighbourhood's Tabadol Association, caught on fire while she was out protesting. "The whole house set on fire because of a fallen candle. My children were asleep inside," she says. "The house was full of smoke, but we rescued them."
Filed in the complaint to the European Committee of Social Rights were a list of medical reports, including the case of carbon monoxide poisoning in a 17-year-old girl due to a butane gas cooker, and the death of a 74-year-old man linked to extreme cold. During the 2023/24 winter, 25 people were poisoned by gasoline generators and two fires caused by candles, local media reported.
"If we survive the freeze, we die from carbon [monoxide] and fire," says Akrikez.
Education, too, has become an issue. Multiple families say their children only attend school a few times a week because they are not able to wash every day. Antonio Fernandez was 12 when the outage started. "We couldn't go to school because our clothes were dirty," the now 16-year-old says. "My education was taken away from me."
Researchers have described the situation as one of "extreme energy poverty". "There's really no similar case in Europe," says Ulpiano Ruiz-Rivas, a professor at Carlos III University, who has conducted research in Cañada Real since 2019.
Precarious remedies
On top of butane gas cookers, residents have also invested in diesel generators, batteries and firewood heaters. Solar panels now line many of the roofs of the structures, though not all residents are.
In sector 5 another solution has been found, with residents self-organising to take over the management of their local distribution network.
Gladys Zambrana, 43, of the neighbourhood association, explains that the citizens joined together to pay for electricity transformers. "We paid a lot for it, we fix it if it breaks, nobody can touch it," she says. The citizens now adjust the aggregated electricity demand, by disconnecting parts of the sector in turns, to meet the new capacity requirements.
Zambrana shows a WhatsApp group where hundreds of members organise the supply. "Today we have electricity, but tonight we will not," she says. "We ration it." The strategy allows approximately 300 houses to have access to electricity on certain times and days.
"The community has made an arrangement to diminish their consumption, and they have established cut-offs," says academic Ruiz-Rivas. "They keep their consumption terribly low – they're aware that if it is cut off, it might not come back on."
Solutions within reach
With multiple authorities sharing varying degrees of responsibility for Cañada Real, which is also known as "Europe's largest shanty town," residents say they fall through the cracks.
Those involved are the government of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, as the main sponsor of the regional agreement for Cañada Real, Naturgy Energy Group, as the parent company of the DSO in charge of the local distribution grid, and various municipalities in which the settlement is administratively located.
Locals say they only see politicians around election times, and that for the most part they are sidelined. "We are completely isolated here," says Akrikez. Manuela Mayoral Silva, project coordinator at NGO Associacion Barro, says: "Nobody wants to assume responsibility for bringing electricity back."
Naturgy Energy Group says the lack of supply continues because of "overloads in the network due to high non-localized consumption" and says it is not possible to re-establish supply because of "safety reasons due to the precariousness of the connections and the overloading of the grid." It also says residents have been given information about how to contract the supply, and if their applications comply "with legal requirements" they will be connected.
Madrid City Council says its priority is relocation, adding that it has relocated 308 families and signed an agreement for the distribution of cylinders, stoves, petrol cards for generators and firewoods. It says that "access to electricity supply through a stable or regularised network is an issue that goes beyond the powers of Madrid City Council."
Nonetheless, the ECSR ruling determined that Spain has failed to guarantee minimum living standards for the affected families and has not taken sufficient measures to restore supply or find alternative solutions.
It denounced Madrid's relocation plans, saying "reasonable deadlines" had not been set, with some relocations not scheduled until 2034,14 years after the start of the power outages.
It noted that stigmatisation and discriminatory statements have worsened the situation, after hearing testimonies from children that they hide where they live from their classmates, due to fears of being deemed dirty or related to criminality.
The ECSR also said that states cannot "outsource" their human rights duties to energy companies, and has told Spain that it must guarantee the supply of electricity over prioritising the interests of any private company.
While Madrid City Council says it respects the ECSR's decision, it continues to say that the only solution is relocation. A source says that "the ruling does not oblige the Spanish public administrations to reestablish the electricity supply, but to carry out actions that guarantee effective access to quality housing."
Akrikez, who does not want to be relocated and says she wants to stay in her home and pay for her electricity. "We want to pay, but they won’t let us," she says. "I think it's because they want to move us so they can expand Madrid and build new apartment blocks here."
To date, no tangible results have been made in addressing supply disconnections, and the feeling among residents is largely one of despair. "People are tired of fighting," says Akrikez. "They have taken away our lives."
Solar panels on top of houses in Cañada Real, with a view of Madrid in the background. Photo: Harriet Barber