Abascal had been evicted on September 23 from the home where she had lived for more than 70 years. According to information reported by the South China Morning Post and The Hindu, police and social workers had taken her away on a stretcher, and she had been hospitalized ever since.
The eviction turned her case into a symbol of Spain’s housing crisis. Her removal also sparked housing protests in several parts of the country.
Abascal’s case thus went beyond the private dimension of an eviction, becoming one of the reference points for mobilizations against Spain’s housing crisis.
The protests that followed the eviction were linked to a broader political crisis. France 24 and the South China Morning Post report that the mobilization ultimately led Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to call early elections.
Abascal’s death therefore comes after a case that had brought the housing crisis and the consequences of evicting an elderly woman—who had already become a symbol of the protests—to the center of public debate.
The announcement of her death was attributed to Madrid’s tenants’ union, while the available accounts agree that she was 87 and on the role played by the eviction in sparking the protests.