In Spain, a homelessness crisis unfolds in Madrid's airport

MADRID (AP) — Every morning at 6 a.m., Teresa sets out in search of work, a shower and a bit of exercise before she returns home. For the past six months, that has been Terminal 4 of Madrid’s international airport.

Teresa, 54, who didn’t want her full name to be used because of safety concerns, is one of the estimated hundreds of homeless people sleeping in the Spanish capital’s airport amid a growing housing crisis in Spain, where rental costs have risen especially fast in cities like Madrid, the country's capital, and Barcelona.

She and others sleeping at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport — the third-busiest airport in Europe in 2023, according to Eurostat — described a situation where for months, authorities have neither helped them find other living arrangements nor have they kicked them out from the corners of the airport that they have occupied with sleeping bags unfurled on the floor as well as blankets, luggage carts and bags.

Soon, things could change.

Spain’s airport operator AENA this week said that it would start limiting who can enter Madrid’s airport during low-travel hours by asking visitors to show their boarding passes. AENA said that the policy would take effect in the next few days, but didn't specify exactly when. It said that exceptions would be made for airport workers and anyone accompanying a traveler.

Teresa, a Spanish-Ecuadorian who said she has lived in Spain for a quarter-century, told The Associated Press on Thursday that she hadn't heard of the new policy. She and her husband would be forced to sleep outside on park benches and other public spaces if they aren’t allowed back in.

“We can’t make demands. We’re squatters,” Teresa said, using a controversial term common in Spain. “Squatters in what is private property. We are aware of that. We want help from authorities, but not a single one has come here.”

For months, a political blame game between officials at different levels of government has meant that the homeless encampments in the airport have largely gone unaddressed. In recent weeks, videos on social media and news reports of the airport's homeless population put a spotlight on the issue.

Madrid’s city council on Thursday said that it had asked Spain’s national government to take charge and come up with a plan to rehabilitate every homeless individual sleeping in the airport. Spanish airports are overseen by AENA, a state-owned publicly listed company. A city council spokesperson said that Madrid's city government had recently called for a meeting with officials from AENA, the regional government of Madrid and several national ministries that declined.

“Without them, there is no possible solution,” said Lucía Martín, a spokesperson for Madrid’s city council division of social policies, family and equality. She said that the national ministries of transport, interior, inclusion, social rights and health declined to participate in a working group.

A day earlier, AENA accused Madrid’s city authorities of providing inadequate help and said that the city government's statements about the unfolding situation confirmed its “dereliction of duty” and abandonment of the airport’s homeless individuals.

“It's like a dog chasing its tail,” said Marta Cecilia Cárdenas of the long list of authorities she was told could help her. Cárdenas, a 58-year-old homeless woman originally from Colombia, said that she had spent several months sleeping in Madrid's airport.

It’s not known how many people are sleeping in Madrid’s airport, through which 66 million travelers transited last year. Spain’s El País newspaper reported that a recent count taken by a charity group identified roughly 400 homeless people in the airport, many of whom, like Teresa, had previously lived in Madrid and were employed in some capacity.

AP wasn't able to confirm that number. Madrid city council officials, meanwhile, said that the Spanish capital's social service teams had helped 94 individuals in April with ties to the city, 12 of whom were rehabilitated into municipal shelters, addiction treatment centers or independent living.

Teresa said she had heard about sleeping in the airport by word of mouth. Before she lost her job, she said she lived in an apartment in Madrid’s Leganés neighborhood, earning a living taking care of older people.

She currently earns 400 euros ($450) per month, working under the table caring for an older woman. With the earnings, Teresa said she maintains a storage unit in the neighborhood that she used to live in. Though the work is sporadic, she said it was still enough to also cover fees for the gym in which she showers daily, pay for transportation, and purchase food.

Over the last decade, ​the average rent in Spain has almost doubled, according to real estate website Idealista, with steeper increases in Madrid and Barcelona. Spain also has a smaller public housing stock than many other European Union countries.

Teresa said that she hopes to find a job soon and leave the airport, whatever authorities may force her to do in the coming days and weeks. She and her husband keep to themselves, avoiding others sleeping in the brightly-lit hallway dotted with sleeping bags who were battling mental health problems, addiction and other issues, she said.

“You end up adjusting to it a bit, accepting it even, but never getting used to it,” Teresa said over the constant din of airline announcements. “I hope to God that it gets better, because this is not life.”

People sleep on the floor of Terminal 4 at Adolfo Suarez-Madrid Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

A person eats sitting on the floor of Terminal 4 at Adolfo Suarez-Madrid Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

People sleep on the floor of Terminal 4 at Adolfo Suarez-Madrid Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

A person sleeps on the floor of Terminal 4 at Adolfo Suarez-Madrid Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

People sleep on the floor of Terminal 4 at Adolfo Suarez-Madrid Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

JDEIDEH, Lebanon (AP) — It was not how the Rev. Maroun Ghafari had envisioned this Holy Week — for years, he had held Easter sermons in his predominantly Christian village of Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel.

This year, he is preaching from a Beirut suburb, beside a cardboard cutout depicting his church in Alma al-Shaab, now caught in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters.

Since hostilities erupted last month between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group — in the shadow of the wider, U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — over 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, and more than 1 million have been forced to flee their homes.

Among those displaced from the war-torn south are thousands of Christians. They now find themselves far from their ancestral churches in Lebanon, where Christians have maintained a strong presence through centuries of Byzantine, Arab and Ottoman conquest and plenty of modern-day crises.

Christians are estimated to make up around a third of Lebanon's population of roughly 5.5 million people. With 12 Christian sects, the country is home to the largest proportion of Christians of any nation in the Arab world.

Christian villagers who stayed behind in southern Lebanon, ignoring Israel’s blanket evacuation warnings for the area, have increasingly hardened into enclaves surrounded by fierce clashes.

And though villagers in Alma al-Shaab had been uprooted before, in the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah war, this time around, they were adamant they wouldn't leave, even as airstrikes came closer and closer.

The villagers huddled in their church for protection as Israeli warplanes pounded large swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon while Israeli troops stepped up a ground invasion and Hezbollah kept firing rockets at Israel.

In his annual Easter homily, Patriarch Beshara al-Rai of Lebanon’s Maronite Church blamed both Hezbollah and Israel for the suffering wrought by the war.

“The country is going through a critical situation due to Iranian interference through Hezbollah and Israeli aggression,” he said. “Our hearts bleed for the victims of the conflict imposed on Lebanon.”

Ghafari’s brother, 70-year-old Sami Ghafari, was among the villagers who sought refuge at the church in Alma al-Shaab.

But he dashed out briefly on March 8 to tend to his garden, and was killed by an Israeli drone strike. His killing prompted the remaining villagers — including his brother — to pack up their belongings.

The U.N. peacekeepers in the area — a force known as UNIFIL that has monitored the region for nearly five decades — evacuated them to the northern suburbs of Beirut.

“We wanted to stay, but it was always possible that one of us could be targeted or killed at any moment,” the Rev. Maroun Ghafari told The Associated Press from St. Anthony Church in the northern Beirut suburb of Jdeideh, where the displaced from Alma al-Shaab came to worship on Saturday.

“Everyone is tired, and we see that war brings nothing but destruction, death and displacement.”

For many Lebanese Christians, it's a tradition on Holy Saturday — the day between Good Friday, which commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and Easter Sunday, which marks his resurrection according to the Gospels — to visit the graves of their loved ones.

This year, displaced Christians could only reflect from afar.

Nabila Farah, dressed in black for the Saturday service at St. Anthony Church, was among the last to leave Alma al-Shaab. She still feels heartbroken, a month later.

“You miss the smell of home, the lovely traditions and customs, the sounds of the bells of three churches ringing,” she said, reminiscing about her village. “As much as we experience the Easter atmosphere here, it will never be as it is over there.”

Those who remain face other challenges.

Marius Khairallah, a priest in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, where much of the Christian community has hunkered down, says that he and his congregants are staying put "not out of stubbornness, but out of a sense of mission, to remain alongside their fellow faithful, as witnesses.”

“A significant number of parishioners have been displaced or are absent,” he said. "Yet churches still open their doors. Prayers are still raised — even with fewer voices."

Worries are mounting among Christians in the area as the Lebanese army — which seeks to stay neutral in the Israel-Hezbollah war — pulls out from parts of southern Lebanon, leaving them exposed to Israeli forces pushing deeper into the territory.

St. Antony's main priest, the Rev. Dori Fayyad, used his Good Friday sermon to take solemn note of the war’s widening toll on the southern Lebanese Christians, as the faithful recited prayers in Arabic and Syriac, a dialect of the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus.

“Today, you understand what the cross means, not as an idea, not as a concept, but because you are going through it,” he told the fully packed pews, the crowd so thick that dozens had to stand or crouch on the back stairs.

Some wiped away tears as Fayyad named one by one the southern churches, illustrated in the cardboard cutouts next to the pulpit.

“These churches in these villages are not only places of worship,” he said. “They are silent witnesses to suffering and to faith.”

Associated Press video journalist Ali Sharafeddine in Jdeideh, Lebanon, contributed to this report.

A girl kisses a cross held by a priest during Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Parishioners walk in a procession after a Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Worshipers pray during Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Worshipers pray during Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Worshipers pray during Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)