The 11 th March Terrorist Attacks in Madrid

The recent bombings in the capital city of Spain , one of the allies of the U.S. in their war against terrorism in the Middle East , have placed the severity of the terrorism issue, as if further proof was needed, beyond the shadow of a doubt.

However, it has also underlined some other issues our world is confronted with, and especially Romania , the country of origin of a large (and growing) number of the victims. Among the communters that found themselves in the trains that lead them to death, there were also some Romanian citizens that went to Spain in the pursuit of better economic conditions.

Although the situation had been acknowledged before, no one had paid the due attention to the actual extent of the emigration phenomenon. It has been estimated, on this occasion, that there are about half a million Romanians in Spain , forming the second largest Romanian community outside our country's borders. Looking for better retribution, many Romanians temporarly leave the country heading for the western economically developed countries. Most of the times, they are not employed on legal terms, therefore they don't have any insurance in case of accidents. It is only tragical that it takes such dramatical situations to point out the flaws of our system (and the Spanish system's as well, as it is quite far from the eradication of illegal employment).

The question is, did these events put an end, or at least a strain on the stream of emmigrants? Probably no. Did these events raise some alarms among the illegal Romanian employees? Probably no. As one reporter of the Romanian national newspaper “Adevarul”, interviewing a hospitalized victim stated: “the men was happy to have been in the right place at the right time. Not because he wasn't killed, but because he gained, at the expense of some rather serious injuries, the Spanish citizenship he had been dreaming of!” Should this worry us? Probably yes. Certainly so!   [UP]