Up to a thousand people gathered between 17 and 19 April for a protest camp against the continued operation of sodium and potash salt mines in the county of Bages, in the province of Barcelona. The reason? The national and international consequences generated by their owner, Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL), whose Iberian arm is known as Iberpotash and has managed the mines in the municipalities of Sallent, Balsareny, Vilafruns and Súria since they were privatised in 1998.
Dozens of long-standing local platforms, such as Montasalat, have for years denounced the pollution caused in this county. Over two decades the company has built up mountains of waste which are believed to have leached into the Llobregat, one of the main rivers running through the region, after using tens of thousands of litres of water in an area that suffers recurrent droughts.
But demonstrators also took to the streets over ICL’s production of white phosphorus, a chemical that ignites instantly on contact with oxygen and is extremely hard to extinguish. Prone to sticking to skin and clothing, it causes deep, severe burns, penetrating even through bone.
Its use was documented and verified by two human rights organisations on 16 October 2023 in the town of Daraiya, in southern Lebanon, by the Israeli army, as well as in the Gaza Strip.
